<The Supreme Authority for the Development of Riyadh City denied that it has any intention or direction to reduce spending on the “Metro” project, by confirming that work on the public transportation project (train and buses) is proceeding as planned and work continues in 140 sites, with a completion rate of more than 21%.This followed a report published by MEED yesterday that the authority is discussing reducing spending on the “Metro” project through two options, the first of which is to remove some non-critical elements of the project, and the second is to extend the duration of the project, whose contracts were signed in July 2013 for five years, to increase the project delivery period by two years.

The authority stated that the project is progressing as planned and work is continuing at 140 sites with a completion rate of more than 11%. <The Authority stated that excavation and construction work is currently underway at the main and substation sites and at each of the following: The fifth terminal station at King Khalid International Airport, the control and operation center, and the accommodation and maintenance centers, in addition to the reinforcement and concrete pouring works for many tracks and bridges, service transfer works, and supplying the project with electrical power. Work is also currently continuing within the project in digging deep tunnels for the tracks, through five giant machines that have started their work in different locations of the network, among seven machines specially manufactured for the project to be used to dig the tunnels of three tracks with a total length of 35 km.

The project is currently underway. <The Riyadh Metro is 176 km long and includes 85 stations, while the Riyadh Metro project is integrated with a bus network that includes 24 tracks with a total length of 1083 km including 776 stations, and the project is scheduled to be completed within four years from the start of implementation, followed by four months of operational tests. Meanwhile, the manufacturing of the first train cars for the project has begun, with the manufacture of cars for the blue (Olaya-Batha axis) and red (King Abdullah Road axis) lines. The project includes 470 train cars that are being manufactured specifically for the project by three of the world's largest train car manufacturers. The contracts for the Riyadh Metro were awarded in 2013 to three international consortiums with a total value of about 22.5 billion dollars (equivalent to about 84.4 billion riyals), to be implemented within five years.

The Riyadh Metro project was awarded in 2013 to three international consortiums with a total value of about 22.5 billion dollars (equivalent to about 84.4 billion riyals).