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УДК 528.9
Florina Grecu, Robert Dobre, Laura Comanescu, Catalina Raboj University of Bucharest Faculty of Geography Romania
TERRAIN SUITABILITY FOR A RAILWAY CONNECTION BETWEEN BUCHAREST AND ITS INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL
The easiest and least time consuming way to travel from one place to another is definitely by plane. But due to specific maters airports are situated quite far from the city center, where in fact one needs to be. So an important question would be: which is the best way to travel from the airport on? Big cities seem to have found it: known as Leonardo Express in Rome and even simpler in Paris RER, the high speed trains are nowadays the easiest, most economic and comfortable means of transport from the airport to the city center.
Bucharest is by all means a big city. It has over 2 300 000 inhabitants, a diverse cultural patrimony, good hotels and an increasing number of places to spend time in. But, all these possibilities are less luring if you take into consideration traveling by car. The traffic is really chaotic in Bucharest, due to the poor and underrated infrastructure. The main airport of the city is located 14 kilometers north from the city along the DN 1, one of the busiest roads possible. Taking into consideration the fact that Bucharest is presently developing along this road also used as access gate towards Transylvania and Moldova, great regions of Romania, we can better understand the traffic conditions in the area. Therefore it is easy to infer that the traveling time to and from the Henri Coanda airport is doubled or even tripled by these circumstances.
Considering all these facts we must ask ourselves the following question: “why is there no rail connection between Bucharest and its airport?” The project of a subway train that will connect the airport to the underground system was already developed. But such a project is extremely expensive and building the infrastructure would take several years.
There is always the possibility though to develop a rail connection between the airport and the city following the example of others. Such a project would definitely be less expensive since it could be accomplished by making use of the already existing infrastructure. It would only be necessary to build the missing links - Bucharest - Urziceni railway passes at only 2 kilometers from the airport. Such a project would definitely improve the access from the airport and it will also increase the quality standards of the trip.
A rail connection Bucharest - airport offers several advantages. The traveler benefits because the mentioned solution is safer, more comfortable and less polluting and intrusive for the environment if compared to other similar projects. The traveling time is very much reduced, less then 20 minutes from the North Railway Station which is very well connected with the urban transport facilities; in the near future this train station would become an important transport terminal. On
the other hand the administration has much to gain since this investment is less expensive as compared to the subway project and the time necessary to build it is shorter, 6-10 months are enough to build the lacking 19.6 km. Another strong point would be the relief’s suitability and the possibility to upgrade the existing infrastructure.
© Florina Grecu, Robert Dobre, Laura Comanescu, Catalina Raboj, 2006
