Progress on the Doha Metro continued to move forward this month after an international engineering consultancy began preparing detailed design and architectural finishes for stations on the Gold Line.

Arcadis, which is headquartered in Amsterdam and has subsidiaries in Doha, said today that it had won a contract worth nearly €20 million (QR81.51 million) to provide architectural, branding, design and construction consultancy services for 10 of the 13 Gold Line stations. Work began earlier this month, the company said.

“The design element of the metro line will be absolutely critical to Doha and its community,” said Sameer Daoud, the infrastructure global business leader of Arcadis in the Middle East, in a statement.

Once the first phase of the metro is completed, the Gold Line will run from Villaggio Mall to past the old airport via Msheireb.

It is one of four lines that are currently under construction and expected to enter operations in 2019. The others are:

• The Red Line North, running from a connection with Lusail’s light-rail line to Msheireb via West Bay;
• The Red Line South, running from Msheireb to Mesaieed, with a branch to Hamad International Airport; and
• The Green Line, running from Al Rayyan Stadium to Msheireb via Education City.

Arcadis said it has a similar design contract to work on the Red Line South.

Last September, the principal architect for the project – Dutch firm UNStudio – published renderings to illustrate how elements of the project would look.

It said its design “forms a bridge between the past and the future of Qatar, drawing inspiration from the vast regional architectural lexicon, whilst simultaneously representing an effective vision of modernisation and preservation.”

Other projects

The metro project is one of three major public transportation projects planned for Qatar. The 38-station Lusail LRT is also expected to enter operations in 2019 and will connect to the Red Line North.

A high-speed, long-distance rail line is also planned to run between Education City and the border with Saudi Arabia as part of a broader GCC rail network.

Despite reported delays in qualifying contractors for that project, Qatar Rail officials said in April that the long-distance passenger and freight line is still scheduled to enter operations by 2018.

The Doha Metro project reached a symbolic milestone earlier this month when a tunnel boring machine broke through the earth to reach Msheireb station.

So far, contractors have completed approximately 30km of the tunneling, which accounts for more than a quarter of the necessary excavation works, Qatar Rail said earlier this month.

Thoughts?