Owner Ministry of Transport Transit type Rapid transit Number of stations 6 | Locale Dnipro, Ukraine Number of lines 1 | |
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Native name Дніпровський метрополітен
Dniprovskyi metropoliten | ||
The Dnipro Metro (Ukrainian: Дніпровський метрополітен, formerly Дніпропетровський метрополітен; Russian: Днепровский метрополитен, formerly Днепропетровский метрополитен) is a single-line metro system that serves the city of Dnipro, the fourth largest city in Ukraine by population. The metro was the third system constructed in Ukraine, after the Kiev and Kharkiv metro systems, respectively, when it opened on December 29, 1995. The metro was the fourteenth built in the former Soviet Union region, and the first to open after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Contents
The Dnipro Metro consists of one 7.1-kilometer (4.4 mi) line and 6 stations. The line starts at the Vokzalna station, near the city's central railway station in the east and ends at the Pokrovska station in the western part of the city. The system is open from 05:30 to 23:00. Ridership on the metro has steadily declined since its opening in 1995; in 2013, the metro carried only 7.51 million passengers (compared to 18.2 million in 1995). Initially, the metro trains carried five train cars each, but as the passenger ridership declined, the number of cars was reduced to three. The price for a single ride is currently 2 UAH; either plastic token or transit cards are used at the entrance gates.
Current expansion plans are projected to increase the number of stations to nine by 2020
History
In 1979, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union affirmed the Central Committee of the Communist Party's action to allow the Gosplan (government planning agency) and the communication and transportation construction ministries to conduct research on construction a metropolitan system in Dnipropetrovsk.
The construction itself was started on March 15, 1982 following a decree by the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. These plans were realised when the system's first line, the Tsentralno-Zavodska Line, was opened to the public on December 29, 1995.
The Dnipropetrovsk Metro system was constructed following the typical Soviet metro construction format. Out of the six stations, five are located deep underground and one is placed near the surface. Four of the deep stations are single vaults built on Leningrad technology and one is a Pylon. The only shallow station is a pillar trispan. Owing to the economic recession of the early 1990s, the metro stations lack the same level of decoration and architectural integrity of those built in Soviet times.
Future growth
Three stations are currently under construction, which would expand the system from the Dnipro Central Railway Station (at Vokzalna) to the city centre; Teatralna (near the Theatre of Opera and Ballet), Tsentralna, and Muzeina (near the Museum of History). Construction on these two stations was restarted in late February 2011 after being completely halted on July 26, 2009. A lack of funding for the construction also was due to the fact that Dnipropetrovsk was not chosen as one of the host cities of the UEFA Euro 2012 football championship.
In June 2014, President Petro Poroshenko signed the 2014 budget into law which will allocate funding to the "Dnipropetrovskyi Metropoliten" company for the completion of the metro's line.
Two new stations in the city centre, "Teatralna" and "Tsentralna" were expected to be finished by 2015, whilst "Muzeina" was according to plans to be finished by 2016. Another station, "Parus", is planned for the western terminus of the Tsentralno-Zavodska Line. But construction did not start because the tender to select the contractor was stopped by the city council in August 2015.
After the first additions to the line segment, the total length of the only line is expected to be 11.82 kilometers (7.34 mi), with 9 stations. In the long term perspective, a second line is planned to span across the Dnipro River, and to potentially have 80 kilometers (50 mi) of track on three lines minimum.