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At noon on September 15, 2020, Eroilor 2 station, the end of the newly opened Drumul Taberei subway bus line, was presented to the ordinary passenger as a museum. Here you could find all the copies of the kingdom of the subway stations: very illuminated platforms, multi-colored signs, light panels, escalators, walls with various architectural motifs or murals, train tracks, chrome trains. However, the highlight of the day was the expression “Attention, the doors are closing!”, As if the impatient life of the entire neighborhood had only waited for this signal to wake up from a long sleep.
9 years after the start of the works and a delay of 5 years, the Drumul Taberei metro has finally been inaugurated, which has become, especially in recent years, an almost inexhaustible subject of jokes and anecdotes.
As a point of comparison, the construction of the new highway lasted longer than the Apollo 11 program, which began in 1961 and which, 8 years later, put the first man on the moon.
“Tomorrow, starting at 12 noon, the M5 metro line will start operating.” This is what could be read on the Facebook page of the Romanian Transport Minister Lucian Bode on September 14, 2020, 9 years after the launch of the first shovel to the ground, but also the first battery of promises related to this engineering achievement that historians of the future will dryly record under the name of “Drumul Taberei Underground.”
From the moment the minister made the announcement until the next day, the entire city of Bucharest seemed to freeze in a single fixation, related to the departure of the first train from Eroilor 2 station into the unknown, on the Academia Militară-Romancierilor route. -Valea Ialomiței-Râul. Lady.
The truth is that on September 15, 2020, at noon, a relatively large crowd filled the stands at the entrance of the new Heroes station, trembling with anticipation, as before a true trip to the center of the earth.
The moment would be delayed a bit, because 12 o’clock was dedicated exclusively to the inauguration of the subway by President Klaus Iohannis, in the presence of Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and Minister Lucian Bode.
“This line runs the risk of becoming a kind of legend, a legend of postponements, but here came a determined government that wanted to show that these things can be inaugurated successfully,” said the head of state.
An hour later, after Iohannis left, the subway was reopened for Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and members of the Executive, who decided to go down once more underground, for an additional train ride.
“People! You can see people on the Horizon!”
At approximately 2 and 2 minutes, the Eroilor 2 station vibrated under the swirling footsteps of the first group of Metrorex employees, TESA personnel, security guards who also embarked on their first trip on the M5 bus. Among them, some civilians dressed very well, as if they were on vacation. “Are you not upset, are you employed or just traveling?” They were timidly asked by the journalists present at the event. “Employees …” was the reply, spoken with half a mouth.
The electronic clocks of the stations were already past 2 in the afternoon, but the mere passengers, the people of the Capital, were still missing.
The wait would end when the train arrived at Orizont station, when a loud shout made the whole set vibrate:
“People! There are people on the platform!”
The cry carried in it that hope with which the sailors of yesteryear shouted “Land!”
Thus, after the invasion of suits and uniforms, ordinary people in sandals and shorts gradually began to take control of the subway. The workers left their jobs on the construction sites, the young entrepreneurs the small businesses and the students the courses of the Faculties of Law or Medicine for a tour of the new subways of Drumul Taberei.
The garrison emptied its load of onlookers at regular intervals of 2-3 minutes, to fill up with other groups of passengers who took photos, filmed each other or laughed out loud.
From the topic of breathless jokes, the Drumul Taberei subway suddenly became a museum.
“Tudor Vladimirescu? What station is this? It’s not on the map!”
From the voice of the traveler who noticed the anomaly, there is slight concern. The woman had initially stated that she “especially gave up on ordering another Uber”, to see how fast the subway gets from Heroes to Novelists.
But no one had warned him about this huge unknown: where did the station in question come from? FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
In fact, “Tudor Vladimirescu” does not appear on the subway “map” in the car, but “Drumul Taberei 34”.
But the small anomaly is quickly forgotten. The next one is the “Parque Drumul Taberei, with the platform on the left” station. Or right. Nobody knows anymore.
“We will have to learn these stations,” concluded a man who, like almost everyone, walks his son on the subway to see the entire series of stations on the new bus.
Somewhere in the Military Academy, a security guard is asked where a bathroom can be found.
“I don’t know, really,” is the reply. “I’ve only been here an hour.”
On the first day, passengers were able to ride the new bus without paying.
The Camp Road Tube: a decade of great failures
The M5 motorway is Bucharest’s first metro line built from scratch after the fall of communism and, at the same time, the most expensive complete urban infrastructure work. It costs 3.4 billion lei.
The section, about 7 kilometers long and 10 stations, was completed in almost 9 years: practically, less than a kilometer of line was executed per year.
The works officially began in October 2011, with the promise that they will be completed in 2015. Since then and until now, 17 ministers have succeeded each other as head of the Ministry of Transport.
In April 2015, however, the tender for trains bound for M5 was blocked, after DNA opened a criminal case in question. “If we don’t have trains, I don’t know when we can drive on Highway 5 to Camp Road,” the minister said at the time. which caused delays automatically.
In 2016, Bucharest residents were promised that “they will be able to travel in the first half of 2017.”
In 2017, passengers were again deceived that they will be able to travel on the Valea Ialomiței – Eroilor metro section from the second half of 2018, according to statements made at the time by Marin Aldea, director of Metrorex.
In 2018, recently removed from the leadership of Metrorex, Dumitru Șodolescu promised in December 2018 that works on Highway 5 will be completed in the first quarter of 2019.
In April 2019, Minister Răzvan Cuc announced that he would sign the automation contract for the 5-meter highway and promised that the entire process would be completed by the end of 2019.
In October 2019, the optimistic estimates of the specialists spoke of August 2020, and the most pessimistic of the end of 2020. Finally, the metro was inaugurated in September 2020.
With the inauguration of this highway, the Capital will reach 78 kilometers of network and 63 metro stations.
