MORE SETBACKS FOR NEW AMSTERDAM METRO LINE

The builders of Amsterdam's new North-South metro line must be thinking
they're in a nightmare they can't wake up from. Thursday's news that tramlines outside the city's Central Station had subsided due to metro building work was just the latest setback in a series of delays, subsidences, leaks and budgets spiralling out of control that have dogged the project since it began.

The new metro link will be called Line 52. It will run through the city's central districts and connect the suburbs of north Amsterdam with the Amsterdam Zuid transport interchange. It will be 9.8 kilometres long, six of which will be underground.

When the plans were agreed in 1996, the budget for the eight-year project was set at 850 million euros. By the time work began in 2003, it had risen to 1.46 billion. Today, it stands at 2.2 billion euros. With the problems currently bedevilling the builders, there's little reason to believe that that figure is final. read more (radionetherlands.com)

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October 6, 2008