Afghanistan starts work on its first metro bus service

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA) - Amid rapid urbanization in the Afghan capital Kabul, the local municipality on Thursday started work on a metro bus service in the city of four million.

The historic old city of Kabul, which has now evolved into a bustling metropolis with an estimated 4 million inhabitants, literally has no effective public transport system though it had electric trams speeding over in the downtown before the Soviet invasion and subsequent civil war in the 1980s.

Abdullah Habibzai, mayor of Kabul, announced on Thursday that the ground work for the first phase of metro service has begun.

“The first metro bus would commute passengers from Saray Shamali to Baraki Square… people would see it in practice early next year,” he said while announcing the awarding of 16 new contracts to private firms for road construction stretching to some 285 kilometers (117 miles) in the city.

Present on the occasion, Sarwar Danish, second vice president, urged Kabul residents to own the city, and help the government keep it clean and green.

According to ‘The City Mayors Foundation’, an international think-tank dedicated to urban affairs, Kabul is the sixth fastest growing city in the world with an annual average growth of 4.74 percent.