A NEW railway line connecting Bratislava-Predmestie and Bratislava-Filiálka stations via an underground tunnel will not be built for now, the SITA newswire wrote.
Slovak Transport Minister Ján Počiatek shelved the project after a feasibility study advised against carrying out the project in its proposed form, which was originally to be co-financed from EU funds. Minister Počiatek announced the halting of the project on October 8.
According to Počiatek, the feasibility study, required by the European Commission, does not recommend the project in the proposed form for economic and technical reasons. It also did not view as feasible its second stage, which involved the building of a railway line from Filiálka to Petržalka and included a tunnel under the Danube River.
“Since it is clear that Brussels would never co-finance these constructions, they could have been financed only from the state budget,” said Počiatek. “However, this is practically impossible due to the bad condition of [state] finances.”
Over €420 million in funds from the Transport Operational Programme for the years 2007 to 2013, originally allocated for this project, will be used for other projects instead. The route may be included in the 2014-2020 programming period.
According to the original plan, the underground Filiálka station was to become the basis of the transportation system in the capital and, apart from international rail transport, serve regional commuter trains from Trnava, Pezinok, Galanta and Senec. Part of the project also involved a 2.5 kilometre underground tunnel. Originally it was also to have been the first phase of the TEN-T project of the European corridor, from Paris to Bratislava, but its route has since been changed.
