KUWAIT CITY, Feb 9: The Municipal Council, in its session scheduled for Monday, will discuss the executive body’s response to the question of member Alia Al-Farsi regarding the national railway network project called, ‘Kuwait State Train’. The newspaper obtained a copy of the Kuwait Municipality’s statement about the abovementioned question and acting Director General of the Municipality Manal Al- Asfour has approved the statement. According to the Municipality, the Public Authority for Roads and Transportation (PART), representing the Ministry of Public Works, prepared the project. It then indicated that its role in the project is to incorporate the railway right-of-way into the entire State plan and study the extent of its conflict with various land uses while confirming its coordination with PART and the Survey Department in this regard.

On Al-Farsi’s question about the recommendation of the fourth master plan with the project’s stakeholders to establish a public transport authority in the future to be able to manage the project after its completion and apply the principle of governance, the Municipality confirmed that the railway project was taken into consideration in the master plan of the State. It elaborated that the suggestion to establish an authority to manage integrated transport operations was included in the report on the fourth master plan. The recommendation also stipulates the establishment of a public transport authority that has power over all passenger services operating in the country, including taxis. The Municipality added that the railway network project’s routes are the same as those proposed by the Ministry of Public Works, while the locations of the railway stations have not been modified and no new station has been created. It pointed out that the presence of public transport stations creates a system for developing the surrounding area -- the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) system -- in the vicinity of the stations.

By Inaas Awadh
Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff