Brussels Metro

A station in the Brussels Metro

Brussels, Belgium, has a metro network with three lines of metro (two of which share a common section), two lines of "premetro" (underground sections used by otherwise open-air tramway lines and designed so as to be convertible to pure metro lines), and a few short underground tramway sections, which makes more than 50 km of underground network and 68 underground stations.

Most of the common section of the first two lines (between De Brouckère and Schuman) was inaugurated on December 17, 1969 as "premetro" (thus with tramways), and was converted in 1976 to the first two lines of the actual metro (which was then considered as one line with two branches).

The Brussels metro is administered by the Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles or STIB (in French) or Maatschappij voor Intercommunaal Vervoer van Brussel or MIVB (in Dutch).

History

Brussels Metro system map

The STIB/MIVB was created in 1954. The first underground tramway line was built between 1965 and 1969; it joined Schuman to De Brouckère. In 1970 a second line was opened, between Madou and Porte de Namur/Naamsepoort. The underground station Diamant was opened in 1972 and the "outer ring" line was extended to the station Boileau in 1975. Since then, this underground tramway section has not been further developed. It is currently used by the tramway lines 23, 24 and 25. The station Rogier was inaugurated in 1974.

It is only on September 20, 1976 that the first metro was brought into service. One branch went from De Brouckère to Beaulieu (in Auderghem), and the other one joined De Brouckère and Tomberg (in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert). The same year, the North-South axis was opened between the North Station and Lemonnier. In 1977 two new stations were built: Sainte-Catherine/Sint-Katelijne which replaced De Brouckère as the last stop in the municipality of Brussels, and Demey which replaced Beaulieu as the last stop of the southern branch.

The next step in the exploitation of the metro was the opening of three metro stations in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (namely Beekkant, the new end of the metro line, Etangs Noirs/Zwarte Vijvers and Comte de Flandre/Graaf van Vlaanderen). In 1982 the line 1 was split in two different lines: the line 1A going from Bockstael (in Laeken, a former municipality now lying in that of Brussels) to Demey (Auderghem) and the line 1B going from Saint-Guidon/Sint-Guido (in Anderlecht) to Alma (in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert). Three years later the line 1A was lengthened to Heysel (near the site of the 1958 World Fair and the Heysel Stadium) at one end and to Hermann-Debroux at the other end. That year was also the one which saw the opening of the station Veeweyde on the line 1B, as well as that of Louise/Louiza on the premetro line dug under the "inner ring" (from Louise/Louiza to Rogier).

This line was extended to Simonis the next year and was finally opened as an official metro line in 1988, known as line 2, then going from Simonis to the South Station. The stations of Kraainem/Crainhem and Stockel/Stokkel were also inaugurated in 1988 on the line 1B. At the other end of this line, the station Bizet opened in 1992. It was then the turn of the line 2 to extend to Clemenceau in 1993. The premetro section known as the North-South Axis was also lengthened until Albert that year with 5 new premetro stations (South Station, Porte de Hal/Hallepoort, Parvis de Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis Voorplein, Horta and Albert).

In 1998 a new station was opened at Roi Baudouin/King Boudewijn (Brussels, line 1A). Four new stations were inaugurated in 2003 on the line 1B: La Roue/Het Rad, CERIA/COOVI, Eddy Merckx and Erasme/Erasmus.

With the inauguration of the new station Delacroix in September 2006, line 2 has been extended on the line Brussel-South(Midi) - Clemenceau.

Plans for 2009

The development plan for 2009 has been approved by the Brussels Capital Region in July of 2005. Following this plan, there will be four true metro lines and 2 tram/metro lines in 2009, as follows:

• Line 1 will go from Gare de l'Ouest/Weststation to Stockel/Stokkel;
• Line 2 will make a loop starting and ending in Simonis;
• Line 3, a tram line with 43-metre long trams and 5 minute intervals, thus making it similar to a metro line. It will run from the place W. Churchill to the Gare du Nord/Noordstation through the North-South axis;
• Line 4, also a tram/metro line and running from Stalle(P) to Esplanade through the North-South axis;
• Line 5 will run from Erasme/Erasmus to Herrmann-Debroux;
• Line 6 from Roi Baudouin/King Boudewijn to Simonis (including the loop of the line 2).

The tram and bus networks will also undergo some major changes. For example, the major part of the North-South Axis (from Lemonnier to Rogier) will only be used by the new line 4 and the line 3 during the day. The lines 55 and 56 coming from Schaerbeek will thus stop at Rogier while the line 52 will be replaced mainly by the lines 4 (from the South station to Thomas and from Van Praet to Esplanade), 56 (from Rogier to Princesse Elizabeth) and 82 (from Drogenbos to Lemonnier).

An already implemented part of this plan is the creation of tramway lines 24 and 25. Since April 2007 the new line 25 goes from Rogier to the Boondael/Boondaal railway station following the route of the ex-line 90 from Rogier to Buyl, then leaves the outer ring towards the ULB campus of Solbosch. The (somewhat older) new line 24 strengthens the tram presence on the outer ring during peak hours; it goes from the Schaerbeek/Schaarbeek railway station to Vanderkindere in Uccle.

See also

• Transportation in Belgium
• List of metro stations of Brussels
• List of rapid transit systems

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Brussels Metro

• (English) (Dutch) Brussels page on Urbanrail.net
• (French) (Dutch) STIB/MIVB official website
• (French) Pictures
• (Hungarian) Metros.hu website - Brussels metro
• (English) Brussels rail network map

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