Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality will build a Bosphorus sub-sea tunnel linking the European and Asian shores for pedestrians to travel on foot between the two sides of the city.
Mayor Kadir Topbaş spoke of the tunnel project on Friday as he announced the new projects he plans to develop during his third term in office. “The tunnel underneath the Bosphorus Strait will offer a link between Üsküdar district on the Anatolian side, and Kabataş on the European side," the mayor said.
The sub-sea tunnel will have a treadmill system to enable travelers to walk faster through between the two sides. It will be be the second sub-sea tunnel connecting the two continents.
The first is a railway tunnel, Marmaray, underneath the Bosphorus Strait, providing a link between the Asian and European shores of Istanbul. It was opened by the then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey. Erdoğan has called Istanbul's undersea engineering project a “crazy project."
Topbaş said Istanbul is a major city which is actually on global country-scale. “It is more crowded than 117 countries, and larger than 123 countries."
Another project the mayor disclosed was a public-run air taxi service. “We are establishing Istanbul Airlines. It will make domestic flights. It will offer air taxi service with aircraft which are able to land on reservoirs."
The mayor declared his administration has launched new work to build the world's largest and most comprehensive rehabilitation center in Istanbul.“Drug-addicts will stay here for one or two years. They will work in farming and other small activities to be rehabilitated," he explained.
Topbaş also said they will construct a 10-meter-wide walkway on poles, starting from Karaköy and ending at the end of Golden Horn. “The new road will also have a two-meter-wide bike path. In this way, our citizens and tourists will be able to cross to the end of the Golden Horn on foot."
Floaring solar panels will be stored over the dams and the lakes in Istanbul, according to another project which will be started under Topbaş's leadership. “In summer,400,000 cubic meters of evaporation is reported in our dams per day. This is a serious amount. We will prevent evaporation and produce power by storing solar panels over the lakes," he said.
