Transport Minister: Ankara-Istanbul will be reduced to 80 minutes

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu made remarks on transportation planning and evacuation in case of a possible earthquake in Istanbul.

“We renovated one of the suspension ropes of our 2 bridges in Istanbul. We are renewing the suspension ropes and doing their routine checks,” Uraloğlu said, adding: “Above all, we are doing anti-seismic reinforcement of viaducts on highways. We have an evacuation plan for Istanbul,” he said.

Uraloğlu said: “We have finished our super high-speed train project between Ankara and Istanbul. We are making the feasibility of this. We will have traveled between Ankara and Istanbul in approximately 80 minutes with two stops. The year 2028 may be ambitious, but we will start construction work,” he said.

NEW ROAD PLAN

Uraloğlu also said that they are planning a new expressway between Ankara and Istanbul.

Uraloğlu stated that they will carry out the production and design of the prototype of the national suburban ensemble in 2024 and continued as follows:

“We also started the design of the 225-kilometer-per-hour high-speed train. We will have produced the prototype in 2025. Then hopefully in 2026 we will have done the design of the high-speed train with a speed of 250 kilometers and the design of the national metro project. The trains we will build; We call it Alperen, Pars, Bora and Alp and we are hard at work.

At the same time, I want you to know that we especially support the private sector. If enough capacity is built, maybe we will get out of this sector as a ministry.

We will finish the Bursa high-speed train line in 2026. We will finish our Mersin-Adana-Osmaniye-Gaziantep line in 2027. When we enter Kapikule, we will leave Gaziantep by high-speed train. Our goal is to finish the Ankara-İzmir high-speed train in 2028.

We are planning our railway line, which will cross the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge and connect the Far East with London for the second time. First of all, we plan to finish our railway line, which will reach the Black Sea, between Kırıkkale and Çorum, in 2028.”

‘BY 2050, ONE IN 2 PEOPLE WILL OWN A VEHICLE’

Uraloğlu expressed that the demand for transport in terms of number of passengers and kilometers is expected to double between 2020 and 2050, saying: “The volume of world trade, which was 12 billion tons in 2020, will increase to 25 billion tons. tons in 2030, 95 billion tons in 2050 and 150 billion tons in 2100. In our country we estimate that our population will increase to 92.5 million in 2029, 98 million in 2035 and 112.6 million in 2053. We forecast that the number of owned vehicles in our country will reach 500 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants in 2050, a figure close to the European average. One in 2 people will own a vehicle. In this case, the current number of vehicles in our country, which is approximately 26.5 million, will be around 55 million in the 2050s. We are implementing our work in light of these facts. With approximately $194 billion spent on our nation’s transportation and communications infrastructure over the past 21 years, we’ve come significant distances in these areas. We have taken our country to an indispensable level in the international arena, taking full advantage of our strategic position with the important investments and developments that we have made in the centenary of our Republic”.

‘WE WILL CONSIDER THE RAILROADS’

Uraloğlu stated that highways are the flagship of the $194 billion investment in the field of transportation, saying, “From now on, we will give more weight to railways. We increased the length of our marked line, which in 2022 was 2,505, to 8,46 kilometers. Let me take this opportunity to point out that the current length of the railway is approximately 13,900 kilometers. We increased the length of the electrified line from 2,122 kilometers to 7,142 kilometers. We increased the length of the railway tunnel from 181 kilometers to 373 kilometers. We also continue to build a total of 3,795 kilometers of rail network, of which 3,593 kilometers are fast and high-speed, 202 kilometers are conventional. The total number of passengers carried on high-speed trains reached 76.2 million. We have increased our road network, which is 1,714 kilometers on highways, to 3,633 kilometers. We increased our divided highway from 6,101 kilometers to more than 29,000 kilometers. We increased the number of active airports from 26 to 57. We again increased the total number of passengers from 34 million to approximately 203 million. While in 2003 we were able to fly to 81 countries, now we can fly to 173 countries.

‘WE WILL REBUILD HATAY AIRPORT’

Uraloğlu stressed that they repaired the earthquake-damaged roads very quickly, saying, “The runway was broken in many places related to Hatay airport, we were only able to open 2,000 meters of the runway, which is about 2,800 meters. Currently, empty planes can land and full planes can take off. Because it is no longer strong enough to support the load of the entire plane. We have completed our project, now we will quickly bid and rebuild the airport. We will do it in the same place, unfortunately, because there is no other place where an airport can be built. There is nowhere else nearby, including Iskenderun. But if you say, “We have experienced this, why are we trying again?” let me give you an example; Now, with the approach to the Rize and Ordu-Giresun airport, we will do it in Lake Amik with the same logic that we did in the sea”.

‘WE WANT TO REDUCE ROAD TRANSPORT RATES’

Noting that an investment of $194 billion has brought about $1,260,000 to production, Uraloğlu said:

“We contributed $606 million to the gross domestic product. We have contributed approximately 110 billion dollars in exports, 31.6 billion dollars in taxes and approximately 1 million people each year. We saved about 30 billion dollars in all sectors. While the number of deaths per 100 billion kilometers traveled in vehicles in 2002 was 5.72; Today it has decreased 4.5 times to 1.08 percent. When we look at the net zero emissions goal, we basically want to reduce trucking rates. Our goal is to increase from 72 percent to 57 percent and from 5 percent to 22 percent in the rail sector.”

‘We will launch TURKSAT 6A INTO SPACE IN 2024’

Uraloğlu stated that they plan to make an investment of about 10 billion dollars in communications until 2028: “Our goal is to increase the number of broadband subscribers here to 112 million and our mobile subscribers to 102 million. I hope we will launch TÜRKSAT 6A into space next year. Our goal is to reach all homes by increasing the Internet service to 100 megabits per second in communications. We plan to provide 100 percent of our population with access to 5G technology by 2028. We started our work on 6G technology. We planned to increase the density of fiber broadband subscribers to cover all of Turkey in the long term. Our goal is to increase mobile broadband subscriber density to 100 percent with communications investments of $57.2 billion. We are creating infrastructure studies related to cybersecurity certification. Next year, we will start the certification and inspection of all smart devices as an Information Technology Authority.

‘WE WILL PROVIDE evacuation FROM ÇANAKKALE’

Later, answering questions from journalists, Uraloğlu said about the ministry’s work in the face of a possible earthquake in Istanbul: “We have renewed one of the suspension ropes of our two bridges in Istanbul. We continue through July 15 and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge. We renew the suspension ropes and do their routine reviews. We especially carry out seismic reinforcement of highway viaducts. The Northern Marmara Expressway has been the aorta of Istanbul in land transportation and Marmaray in rail transportation. Therefore, we will provide both evacuation and emergency aid from the direction of Çanakkale, which we call Kınalı-Malkara. We will also provide the Osman Gazi Bridge from the Northern Marmara Expressway. Of course, this evacuation planning is mainly carried out by our AFAD Presidency. We have an evacuation plan for Istanbul,” he said. Regarding the increase in air ticket prices, Uraloğlu said, “At the moment, there is no loss-making company, especially Turkish Airlines, on domestic flights, it is very Of course, they obtain important benefits abroad and subsidize them at home.” (DHA)