here in helsinki we have currently one metro line (that splits off into two ones at the eastern end).
the planners want to extend this metro line to the west to the neighbouring city of espoo (where nokia has its headquarters). espoo is a bit reluctant of the price but their final decision will be made over the next 12-18 months hopfully.
at the same time they want to build a second metro line (this one a north south) that intersects the current one in the city centre. when the first metro line was opened in the 1980s they built an extra station underneath one of the stations (kamppi station) on the line because to build it at the time saved a huge amount of money for any future expansion of the network (which is now about to begin). (also the kamppi site is currently the largest commecial building site in the nordic countries as a huge new shopping centre/underground bus station is almost finished ahead of schedule!)
this north south line will eventually start to the south east of the city centre, then cross the current line at the kamppi station and continue north to meet helsinkis second train station at pasila (the pasila station will itself get a huge make over, going from the current 10 platforms to a planned 18 i think) and the metro will then split into two lines. one north to the airport and the other more easterly.
anyway, there was a few articles in the "helsingin sanomat" newspaper over the weekend and those articles are now available on the papers english language section.
links:
seed of new subway line sprouting in basement of kamppi complex (handy map there on that page too)
comment: from the westbound line to the airport
factfile: the cheap expensive subway
hkl (the english language website of the people who run the trams/buses/metros) there is a link to a pdf document there that talks about their vision for the next 7years or so.
helsinki city planning people
originally posted to the boards.ie commuter/transport forum last month, dont know why i didnt post it here sooner. it was written at 2am one morning, so i might have left some things out.
2 responses to “metro”
Commuter traffic rocks. I’m all excited about the new plans concerning it. We’ve been trying to get to the unused station at Kamppi for a while now, but we’re not so keen on getting caught doing that so we haven’t really done anything yet.
I used to work for HKL and while I was there I tried to look up weird facts about helsinki. Couple of odd ones:
When they built the asematunneli station, they had to freeze the ground around it so that they’d be able to dig. Because the soil(?) is pretty much clay in the centre of the city and that’s also the reason why the tunnels are digged so deep down. Hmm.. I guess another reason was that underground helsinki is full of tunnels (some built around 60 years ago I guess) that go pretty deep as well.
You could drive your car to “kompassitaso”, if you had the right keys and such. I imagine it wouldn’t stay there for long though.. 😀
I also heard about the unused station while working there.
if you ever get the urge to go visit the unused kamppi station, get in contact!
dw