Metro Caracas

Metro Caracas logo

Map of the metro network from 2016 - the dashed ones are under construction or planned

The Metro Caracas operates the subway network of the Venezuelan capital Caracas (and other transport systems such as Metrobús and Metrocable) and was founded on January 1, 1983. Her birthday is celebrated every year on August 8th. The metro carries over two million passengers every day.

Line network

In 2016, the metro network consisted of four lines, was 54.1 kilometers long and served 47 stations.

line	colour	route	opening	length	Train stations
1	red0	Propatria ↔ Palo Verde	1983	20.4 km	22nd
2	green	El Silencio ↔ Zoológico El Silencio ↔ Las Adjuntas	1987	17.8 km	13
3	blue	Plaza Venezuela ↔ La Rinconada	1994	10.4 km	9
4th	yellow	Capuchinos ↔ Zona Rental	2006	5.5 km	5
5		Santa Ana ↔ El Hatillo	2020		62 percent built in 2019, one station opened

history

Petare Metro Station on Line 1

Bellas Artes of Line 1

The first plans for the construction of a subway modeled on the Argentine capital Buenos Aires were made back in 1938. In the mid-1960s, these became much more specific. In 1977 the Ministry of Transport and Communication founded the Compañía Anónima Metro de Caracas for construction work on the first metro line. The capital developed very quickly, especially due to the increasingly important oil industry . In 1965 the number of inhabitants exceeded the two million mark.

The first line of Linea 1 between the Propatria and La Hoyada stations was put into operation on January 2, 1983, the line had eight stations. Almost four months later, on March 27 of the same year, the route was extended by six stations to Chacaíto . The construction of the first line was operated and developed by a French consortium of 14 companies coordinated by the Société Française d'Etudes et de Réalisation des Transports Urbains .

In 1987, the second, but not connected to the rest of the network, Line 2 followed between La Paz and the two ends of Zoológico and Las Adjuntas . In the following years, the two lines 1 and 2 were connected and extended to their current status.

On December 18, 1994, a third line, running from north to south, completed the Caracas Metro network. The 4.4 km long route between Plaza Venezuela and El Valle has five stations. Since October 15, 2006, additional trains on line 3 have run from the El Valle terminus without stopping to the La Rinconada regional train station , where there is a connection to the suburban trains to Charallave and Cúa . Since the completion of the intermediate stations in January 2010, line 3 has been running continuously from Plaza Venezuela to La Rinconada .

The first stations of a southern parallel line to line 1 opened on July 19, 2006. This new line also took over the branch to Las Adjuntas and is currently operated as a variant of line 2. Internally, this line has the number 4. It was planned to make this name official after an eastern extension.

After the worsening supply crisis in Venezuela from 2016, traveling on the metro was free from May 2018 until at least September 2018; the paper alone and the printing of tickets would have been more expensive than the fare. 85 percent of the 356 escalators were out of order, just as the frequency of trains had decreased due to a lack of spare parts. The pride the Caraqueños had when the metro opened turned into anger.

Expansion of lines 2 and 5 was started in 2007 and should have opened between 2011 and 2013; at the beginning of 2019, the work was not yet finished and mostly stopped. Gigantic cost overruns occurred and the changes to the plans were hardly manageable. Only a few new stations were opened after 2000, mostly due to election dates.

Expansion and planning

Caracas Metro network with planned extensions in 2006

In the medium term, line 4 in the second stage will continue to run parallel to line 1 and end at the Parque del Este underground station . Confusingly, this eastern extension is sometimes called Line 5 , but not to be confused with the one below - under construction.

Further plans concern, among other things, line 3, so in the future there is to be a connection at Zoológico station with line 2. Coming from the south, line 3 should later leave the previous route northwards after El Valle station and via the stations Prado de María , El Peaje , San Augustín , Fuerzas Armadas (change to lines 1 and 4), Urdaneta (change to the planned line 6) lead to San José .

The eastern branch of line 2 Las Adjuntas is to run to El Tambor station ( Los Teques Metro ) in the future .

Furthermore, the congested line 1 is to be supplemented by a line 6 running north of it. From Los Magallanes to the west, line 6 is to run parallel to line 1 towards the east and end in La Urbina . Transfer points are planned at the stations Gato Negro (line 1), Agua Salud (line 1) and Urdaneta (planned extension of line 3). In order to connect the south-east of Caracas to the metro network, line 5 is almost finished. This will lead in a semicircle from Santa Ana via Santa Marta , Chuao (change to line 4), Tamanaco (change to line 4), La Trinidad to El Hatillo .