Metro extension to Punta will begin by the end of this year

At the end of this year, work will begin to extend the Santo Domingo Metro to the community of Punta, in Villa Mella, Santo Domingo Norte municipality.

As confirmed by the Communications Department of the Office for the Reorganization of Transport (Opret), the work will be completed in approximately 12 months to be delivered at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.

The announcement to continue the Metro circuit that, until now, ends at the Mamá Tingó station, in the vicinity of Avenida Hermanas Mirabal with Charles de Gaulle, was announced in September 2021 by the director of Opret, Rafael Santos Pérez.During the Sustainable Mobility Week activity last year, the official indicated that the extension to Punta would also benefit the users of La Victoria and other communities.

Double benefit
The initiative that seeks to relieve the busy Mama Tingó station, which begins line one of the Metro, and combats the historical trauma of the “plugs” in Villa Mella, contemplated a single additional station.

However, government authorities are studying the possibility of creating two terminals.

Parking
In addition to these infrastructures, a parking lot will be added, announced the same day, with the aim that users can leave their vehicles and continue their journey to their workplaces, universities or carry out private errands on the Metro, thus reducing the presence of cars on the main roads of the city.

The idea of ​​public parking areas is not new; in 2018, for example, Opret, together with the Ministry of Works, disclosed that they were already in the process of evaluating several pieces of land for the construction of parking lots in the surroundings of some terminals of the Metro and that the authorization would begin in 2019, this did not come out.

Expansion
On the other hand, the entity in charge of planning and maintaining the transport mentioned above system is currently expanding the capacity of line one to incorporate units with more wagons.

These works have advanced by 75%, according to the entity.

In a statement, they pointed out that the elevated stations, which are the ones being intervened, exhibit 95% of the main structural elements such as beams, arches, and braces, and 100% of the empty platforms, with the elements that support the cover.

The project, as mentioned above, entails an extension from 60 to 120 meters, the length required for the operation of six-car trains, which will increase the transport capacity of metro users. 

DETAILS
Stations
Line one has 16 stations that join in a route from Villa Mella to the Center of the Heroes of Constanza, Maimón, and Estero Hondo (La Feria), passing through the surroundings of La Nicolasa de Ovando, the National Cemetery, the Avenidas 27 de Febrero and John F. Kennedy, the university area, among other points of significant flow.

Inauguration
It was inaugurated in January 2009, by then-President Leonel Fernández, at the cost of some US$700 million.