Dominican Republic: Santo Domingo now accessible to eastern neighborhoods
published on 08 August 2018
With its 3.5 million inhabitants, Santo Domingo is faced with increasing problems of travel organization and urban congestion. The extension of the metro has put an end to the isolation of the eastern neighborhoods and the traffic jams which paralyze the city. Residents can now count on reliable, rapid and cheap transport to connect them to the city center.
The capital of the Dominican Republic is very dense. It is faced with an inefficient public transport network and ever-increasing road traffic. Pollution also gives cause for concern due to chronic traffic jams.
A priority was to open up the outlying neighborhoods in the east, which have developed in a haphazard manner and are cut off from employment areas.
Social and economic opportunities
The new Line 2B of the metro was inaugurated and commissioned on 8 August 2018. It connects the east of the capital by crossing the Ozama River over a 645 meter-long railway bridge built for the occasion. It extends Line 2 with four additional stations over a 3.6 km stretch. This line will change the lives of residents: the city center can now be reached in less than 10 minutes against... 60 minutes before by car! This is saving both time and money: the single fare ticket is under 20 pesos. In addition, the stations and platforms have been adapted for persons with reduced mobility.
Line 2B is bringing hope and should revitalize the economy in this area with a population of 850,000 inhabitants. It should also create new jobs: 120 employees have already been recruited to work on the servicing, maintenance and implementation of the operations.
A project thinking big
This extension is p art of the national urban mobility policy, which aims to develop efficient, safe, environmentally-friendly and affordable public transport in order to discourage the use of individual vehicles. The French companies Alstom, CIM-TSO and Thalès, in consortium with Siemens, have supplied the rolling stock and electromechanical equipment for the metro.
The construction of the extension of Line 2 is one of the components of the “SDE” territorial development project (for Santo Domingo East) financed by AFD via a USD 210m loan signed in 2014. It is an integrated project which rethinks the city: it includes the rehousing of residents of the precarious La Barquita neighborhood, as well as the construction of the first urban cable car service in the Caribbean, which was commissioned on 22 May 2018 in Santo Domingo.
Further reading:
In the Dominican Republic, launch of the first urban cable car service in the Caribbean
