Mayor Bandić said he will be happy in two years when “we can ride from Kvatrić, Vukovar Avenue, Canal Road – where trams are already, to the Airport and back. And with a cycling route of 23 kilometres”
The new tram line project from Kvaternik Square to Velika Kosnica and onward to Franjo Tuđman Airport, with a total value of 100 million euro, was presented on Saturday on the first stop of the new line, Kvaternik Square, by Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić and his associates, announcing construction should begin in the fall and be complete in a year and a half to two years, Poslovni Dnevnik reported on May 12, 2017.
Head of the City Zoning, Construction, Municipal and Transportation Department Dinko Bilić said the project is envisioned in four stages, the first from Vukovar Avenue to Canal Road, in effect to Savišće.
The first stage has a 45 day deadline for the project to be complete, when the tender will be announced, so the first works can be expected in the fall. The route must be clear and all objects on it will be removed. Legal proceedings are either under way or are resolved, including the building of the former bathhouse on Kvaternik Square which has been tagged for removal.
Davor Paradžik, executive director of the Elektroprojekt Company who won the project together with the Split company Geoprojekt, explained the project includes a tram line from Kvaternik Square to Velika Kosnica, the length of the line is eight and a half kilometres, passenger transport capacity is 1.700 persons in one hour and one direction, with an estimated ride duration of 33 minutes. There will be around 13 stops on the line.
Compared to bus transportation the capacity is double and the duration is twice as short, pointed out Paradžik. He announced in the second phase the line will go from Velika Kosnica to the Franjo Tuđman Airport.
Mayor Bandić said he will be happy in two years when “we can ride from Kvatrić, Vukovar Avenue, Canal Road – where trams are already, to the Airport and back. And with a cycling route of 23 kilometres.”
It will be one of the most attractive parts of the city – in transportation and infrastructure, he said and added the line from Kvaternik Square to the Airport will be 11 and a half kilometres long.
The Radnička Road with an overpass and underpass at Žitnjak-Petruševec, to be completed by the end of this year, will be the nicest route, and the Zagreb tram from Kvatrić to the Airport will mean something new in city transportation and additionally position Zagreb on the map of European metropolis, just like the congress centre being prepared, he said.
Every capital city which does not have a quality airport, no contact of the airport with the centre or a U-Bahn or S-Bahn, rail traffic, is not a true European metropolis, Bandić feels.
He reminded this tram line would be in our dreams if 14 years ago the route had not been prepared when Radnička Road and the Homeland Bridge were built. “When I suggested 14 years ago to build the waste water management plant, with a concession, then we built the Homeland Bridge. My former coalition partners, primarily HSLS, you can view the transcripts in the Assembly, were against. I managed to ‘lobby’ and build that,” he reminded.
