Transport puts out to tender the project to extend the tramway from Bolueta to Kukullaga

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Transport puts out to tender the project to extend the tramway from Bolueta to Kukullaga 

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Euskal Trenbide Sarea, the publicly-owned company answering to the Basque Government’s Ministry of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport, has put out to tender the project to extend the tramway from Bolueta to Kukullaga, inn Etxebarri. The study will include an intermediate stop by the mortuary on the edge of Bilbao. 

The line will follow the railway track between Durango and Bilbao. The bulk of the work will therefore consist of turning that track into a tramway. Bilbao’s tramway network will be almost 10 kilometres once those nearly two kilometres have come into service. There will be two new stops, the one at the mortuary and Kukullaga and the tramway will have a total of 19 stations, including the one at Los Caños. 

Engineering firms that are going to tender will have a maximum budget of €150,000 and 10 months to prepare their projects. They should include urban integration proposals, with a special focus on the area between Calle Tellería and Ibarsusibidea in order to ensure their connection. 

The projects will also have to include the construction of a stop with side platforms at around 700 metres to the current terminal stop, in Bolueta, close to the mortuary in the Lezama Legizamon Industrial Estate. The new tramway terminus will be around 1,100 metres further on, at the Kukullaga terminal of Etxebarri, which will also be the hub with Bilbao’s underground Line 3. The study should provide details of how this stop will be inserted with Kukullaga. 

The work could be undertaken in phases, starting with the construction with the first stop, as the nearby tracks must be freed up in order to reach Kukullaga. Those tracks are currently occupied by Euskotren units pending the construction of permanent depots. The Basque Government’s Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport Ministry and Bilbao City Council will first have to sign the partnership and financing agreement, as they have done to develop the tramway network in the capital of Bizkaia so far.