The City Railway of Plovdiv will have 13 stops, the participants of the first working meeting, which is organized by the regional governor Angel Stoev, with the aim of improving the coordination of the project, gathered around this. There are proposals for some of them to build buffer parking lots and to locate bus stops for urban transport.
Engineer Ivan Bakalski, head of the “Plovdiv-Burgas, phase 2” project, took part in the meeting on behalf of the DP NKŽI. The local authority was represented by the Mayor of the Plovdiv Municipality Zdravko Dimitrov, his deputy Todor Chonov and the Chief Architect Dimitar Ahryanov, the Chief Architect of the “Rodopi” Municipality Atanas Nedevski, the Deputy Mayor of the “Maritsa” Municipality Nikolay Stamatov, the Deputy Mayor of the Municipality Asenovgrad Stoyan Dimitrov. The municipality of Kuklen sent a written statement. The executive director of “Thrace Economic Zone” Plamen Panchev and the executive director of SNC “Business for Plovdiv” Alexander Staykov joined the working group.
“At our previous meeting with the participation of the Deputy Prime Minister Hristo Alexiev, we reached an agreement that by the beginning of March the municipalities must give their proposals for stops that satisfy both citizens and businesses, so that the future railway can be convenient and become in preferred transport for movement and logistics”, commented the regional governor at the beginning. He recalled that the implementation of the project includes two stages. The first is the construction of the main ring of the city railway, and the second is the construction of diversions to individual settlements. It will connect the municipalities of Plovdiv, “Rodopi”, “Maritsa”, Asenovgrad and Kuklen and has a chance to be the first urban railway in the country.
“Our conceptual proposal for the additional stops largely coincides with the received written proposals from the municipalities and businesses, and today we reached a very good consensus, which will enable us to quickly move forward with the preparation of the technical documentation,” said Eng. Bakalski after the meeting.
According to the decision of the working group, the stops are the following: Asenovgrad, Mavrudovo, Krumovo railway station (with connection to Plovdiv airport), South-Eastern Industrial Zone (in the area of the former “Typewriters” plant), Plovdiv Central Railway Station, Peshtersko Shosse (in the area of Kaufland store), “Sixth of September” Blvd. (in the area of ”Plovdiv” station), District Hospital, Filipovo railway station, Vojvodinovo Industrial Zone (industrial zone), Skutare (industrial zone), Ravadinovo, Benkovski.
The regional governor stated that at the beginning of April, it is expected that the specifications will be ready and a visualization of the future stops will be prepared by NKŽI, so that the project can be presented to the public. A new meeting of the Working Group is coming up in April.
