Amman-Zarqa Light Rail System

The Amman-Zarqa Light Rail System (Arabic: خط السكة الخفيف بين عمان والزرقاء‎) is a proposed project to address the transportation issues within and between two of the biggest Jordanian cities, the capital Amman and the nearby industrial city of Zarqa. The project proposal consists of three stages[1] with the first stage connecting Amman with Zarqa using about 26 km of the currently existing Hejaz Railway tracks to provide transportation for about 90,000 passengers daily starting from Northern parts of Zarqa (Az-Zarqa'a Al-Jadidah) to Raghadan area in downtown Amman. The estimated cost of the project is about US$333,000,000, and it was anticipated to be in operation by 2012.[2]

The railroad project was first proposed in the late 1990s. Unable to attract qualified bidders, the tender was revised and offered again in 2005 with no success. In 2006, after the Jordanian government sought consulting from local and international consulting groups, the project was tendered for the third time on a Build-Operate-Transfer basis and, ultimately, was awarded to a Kuwaiti-Spanish consortium. However, the consortium was not able to secure the required financing for the project by the deadline of March 31, 2009, which was extended twice before that.[3]

As of June 2009, the contract with the Kuwaiti-Spanish consortium was voided and the project was put on hold.[4]

External links

References

  1. ↑ Presentation On Jordan Railways & Railway Projects, Abdul Razzaq Abul Feilat. In The Meeting on Railway Co-Operation in the Mediterranean, Valencia, Spain. June 14–16, 2000.
  2. ↑ The Public Transportation Regulatory Commission. Reterived July 22, 2009. (Arabic)
  3. ↑ Amman – Zarqa light rail project derailed: Global Financial Crisis Failed project reveals challenges of public-private partnerships for urban rail development, Metro Report International, June 2009, pp. 34-36.
  4. ↑ Notes on the Amman-Zarqa Train Project, Addustour Daily Newspaper, April 11, 2004. Retereived July 22, 2009. (Arabic)
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