Monorail breaks ground in Iran

An increasing number of monorail projects are taking shape across the Middle East

Construction on an Iranian monorail has begun in the city of Qom, 160 kilometres south of the country’s capital Tehran.

Phase one of the project, which will cost US $120 million, kicked off yesterday and will take around two and a half years to complete.

“A monorail in a city such as Qom can stimulate the economy by attracting more tourists and creating a low-cost way of getting around the city,” a spokesman for International Transport Companies Association of Iran told The Media Line.

“It will alleviate traffic congestion and be environmentally friendly.”

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Once complete, the monorail is set to be 24 kilometres long and will have 17 stations. Phase one will see the construction of 5.6 kilometres of the total development and will link to the Qom-Kashan terminal, on the way to the grand mosque.

In the next phases, the monorail will continue to Pardisan town, south of Qom.

The Iranian city of Qom is home to many holy sites for Shia Muslims, and is considered to be the country’s center of religious scholarship. There are an estimated 50,000 religious students from over 70 countries in the city.

The Qom monorail is being built in conjunction with monorails in Tehran and Mashad, part of an Iranian effort to lessen traffic in its major cities.