Turkey’s high-speed railway (YHT) between Istanbul and Ankara will be opened in the first quarter of next year, Transport Minister Binali Yildirim announced on the 18th of November.
In addition to this, some TL 86bn (£26.4bn) worth of transport, communication and maritime projects will be completed over the next five or six years, he noted.
The government plans to construct high-speed and normal railways in the 15 cities in which the majority of the population lives, said Yildirim during the ministry’s 2014 budget presentation.
The Ankara-Istanbul YHT will also be linked to the Marmaray, Istanbul’s massive rail tunnel project that opened on 29th of October and carries passengers under the Bosphorus, through to the Pendik suburban train station. The tunnel enables an uninterrupted journey from Asia to Europe. The journey between Istanbul and Ankara is expected to be reduced to three hours.
