Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed laid a foundation stone on September 5 to officially launch construction on the Route 2020 metro link to the site of Expo 2020.
The 15km line will branch off the Dubai metro Red Line at Nakheel Habour and Tower station to serve Discovery Gardens, Al Furjan, Jumeirah Golf Estates, and Dubai Investments Park before terminating at the Expo site in Jebel Ali. The journey time from Dubai Marina to the Expo station will be 16 minutes.
The line is forecast to carry around 125,000 passengers per day in the first year of operation increasing to around 275,000 passengers per day by 2030.
In June Dubai Roads and Transport Authority awarded the Alstom-led Expolink consortium a Dirhams 10.6bn ($US 2.9bn) contract to build and equip the line, which is due to begin operating on May 20 2020, five months before the start of Expo 2020. More info
By Keith Barrow  www.railjournal.com
