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Copenhagen Metro to partially close for over two weeks

The M3 and M4 lines on Copenhagen’s Metro will close on Saturday February 10th, reopening on February 26th.

Published: 9 February 2024 17:12 CET

Copenhagen Metro to partially close for over two weeks

The M3 and M4 lines on the Copenhagen Metro will be closed from February 10th-26th 2024. Photo: Linda Kastrup/Ritzau Scanpix

The M3 Cityring line, along with the M4 line, will both be closed for over two weeks so that the Metro can run test operations before opening five new stations on the M4 line this summer.

The test runs are a legal requirement for the new stations, which will be served by the same driverless systems as the existing shared M3 and M4 line stations.

The closures were originally announced by the Metro last month.

“Because M3 and M4 have a shared operating system on a part of the line between Østerport and Copenhagen Central, we must unfortunately completely close the lines during the test runs,” operator Metroselskabet said in an email.

M1 and M2, the older parts of the Metro, will run as normal during the closure.

Buses will run in place of the closed lines. You can see their schedules and stops here, or check using Denmark’s Rejseplanen app or website.

READ ALSO: Copenhagen city government greenlights extension to Metro line

“But you should expect much longer journey times with the Metro buses than with the Metro,” Metroselskabet said.

The two lines serve around one million passengers every week, according to the company.

The new stops on the M4 line will be located south of central Copenhagen in the Valby and Sydhavn areas. The will have the names Haveholmen, Enghave Brygge, Sluseholmen, Mozarts Plads and København Syd (Copenhagen South).

The M3 and M4 lines, the newer sections of the Metro, opened in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

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Where Malmö plans to place its first three Copenhagen Metro stops

Malmö and Copenhagen have been pushing for an Öresund Metro linking the two cities since at least 2011, but so far neither the Swedish government nor the Danish one have committed to stumping up their share of the roughly 30 billion Danish kroner (47 billion Swedish kronor, €4 billion) required.

Malmö hopes the Swedish government will take a decision on the project this autumn, and in preparation, the city’s planning board last Thursday took a decision on where the first three stops of the Öresund Metro should be placed.

They have selected Fullriggaren (currently a bus stop at the outermost tip of the city’s Västra Hamnen district), Stora Varvsgatan, in the centre of Västra Hamnen, and Malmö’s Central Station, as the locations of the first three stops, after which the idea is to extend the metro into the city.

Stefana Hoti, the Green Party councillor who chairs the planning committee, said that the new Fehmarn Belt connection between the Danish island of Lolland and Germany, which is expected to come into use in 2029, will increase the number of freight trains travelling through Copenhagen into Sweden making it necessary to build a new route for passengers.

Part of the cost, she said, could come from tolls levied on car and rail traffic over the existing Öresund Bridge, which will soon no longer need to be used to pay off loans taken to build the bridge more than 20 years ago.

“The bridge will be paid off in the near future. Then the tolls can be used to finance infrastructure that strengthens the entire country and creates space for more freight trains on the bridge,” Hoti told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

According to planning documents given out by the city planning authorities, the stop at Fullrigagaren would be called Galeonen and would be roughly, the one at Stora Varvsgatan will be called Masttorget, and the third stop would be called Malmö Central.

Source: Malmö Kommun

After Fullriggaren the next stop would be at Lergravsparken in the Amagerbro neighbourhood, which connects with the current M2 line, after which the there will be four new stops on the way to Copenhagen Central, including DR Byen on the current M1 line.

The hope is that the Öresund Metro will reduce the journey time between Copenhagen Central and Malmö Central from 40 minutes to 25 minutes.

Source: Oresunds Metro

But that’s not all. Excavating a tunnel between Malmö and Copenhagen will produce large amounts of earth, which the architect firm Arkitema has proposed should be used to extend Malmö’s Västra Hamnen district out into the sea, creating a new coastal district called Galeonen, meaning “The Galleon”, centred on the Fullriggaren Metro stop.

This project is similar to the Lynetteholm project in Copenhagen, which will use earth excavated for the Copenhagen Metro extension to build a peninsular in front of Copenhagen Harbour, providing housing and protecting the city from rising sea levels.

Rather than producing a sea wall to protect the new area from rising sea levels, Arkitema and its partner, the Danish engineering firm COWI, have proposed a new coastal wetland area.

“Instead of building a wall, we extended the land out into the sea. Then a green area is formed which is allowed to flood, and over time it will become a valuable environment, partly as a green area for Malmö residents, partly because of the rich biodiversity that will be created there,” Johanna Wadhstorp, an architect for Arkitema based in Stockholm, told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.

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