City Ring facing possible further delays

Frustration is growing amongst the hard-pressed neighbours to some of the new Metro stations

Stephen Gadd

Feb 12, 2019

If all goes according to plan, Copenhagen’s new Metro City Ring will open in July this year. However, a shortage of labour on the project may necessitate further delays.

The opening of City Ring has already been postponed from December 2018 and people who live near some of the 17 new stations in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg are becoming frustrated and anxious, reports DR Nyheder.

More hands needed
The latest bulletin released by the company responsible for the running and construction of the Metro, Metroselskabet, indicates that there may be a risk that the project is delayed.

“Before New Year there were around 500 people on the construction sites to carry out the work and after New Year around 200. That of course leads to a marked drop in productivity,” said the Metro’s technical director Erik Skotting.

Skotting emphasised that he still hoped that City Ring would open as planned but added that: “The next milestone in the project will be reached in March and April and it will be then that we will be able to see whether the workers can make it”.

That sinking feeling
Several groups of neighbours to Metro stations are not amused. Back in 2014 a block of flats on Nørrerbro had to be evacuated when subsidence took place and it was judged that there was a risk of the building collapsing. Even though the inhabitants have now moved back, the damage caused by the City Ring building work can only be properly repaired once the Metro is finished.

Dissatisfaction has also been expressed by a group representing 1,000 neighbours to the coming Østerport, Triangle and Poul Henningsens Plads stations.

“This news is very unwelcome. It has happened so often that I can’t remember how many times the project has provisionally been delayed,” said the chair of the group Christian Alsted.

Once the City Ring is completed, work will start on a new line from Nordhavn that is planned to be ready by 2020 and in mid-2024, a Sydhavn line will open.