Work begins on Romania’s second subway in Cluj-Napoca

The infrastructural project is the largest in Romania since the fall of the Communist regime

Yesterday, 5 June, a groundbreaking ceremony took place on the first line of what will become the Cluj-Napoca Metro. The new subway will be the second one in Romania as currently only the capital Bucharest has this type of public transit.

“This subway line will become fully functional in 2031 when it is expected to have 164,000 passengers/day,” said the country’s transport minister Sorin Grindeanu, who was one of the attendees at the ceremony.

The line, called Line 1, will be 21 kilometres long and will consist of 19 stations serving Romania’s second-largest city. The first seven metro stations are to be completed by 2026.

The total cost of the project is estimated at RON 13.7 billion, or about 2.8 billion euros. Of these, the largest part comes from the state budget, but RON 1.48 billion are from the EU-backed Recover and Resilience Facility.

Cluj-Napoca’s airport gets an extension

The subway's groundbreaking wasn’t the only ceremony to attract officials yesterday in Cluj-Napoca. They also inaugurated the new extension of the departures terminal at the Cluj-Napoca International Airport.

The sudden frenzy around unveiling large infrastructural developments is not coincidental given that Romania is currently in the grips of an electoral campaign both for European and local elections.

Mayor Emil Boc is fighting for re-election, and he made sure to attend both ceremonies in order to highlight the work done by his administration. He has occupied this position since 2004, interrupting it only to take the helm as Romania’s prime minister for three years (2008-2012).

Apart from the future metro line, some other construction sites have also seen inauguration in Cluj-Napoca during the electoral campaign. These include the metropolitan belt, the regional emergency hospital, the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute and a school campus.