Europe’s Largest Capital Without a Subway Is Finally Getting One

Europe’s biggest capital city without a subway has seen initiatives to build one fail for almost a century. By the early 1990’s, a TV series was named “Waiting for Metro” after Samuel Beckett’s famous play “Waiting For Godot” about futile anticipation.

The long wait is coming to an end, city officials say, with €1 billion in binding contracts signed with Chinese and French construction companies and bankers over the past year, and more being finalized so that Belgrade’s first, €4.4 billion ($5.13 billion) subway line can open in 2030. A second line is to follow a few years later, at a similar cost, while designs are developed for a third to try to ease chronic congestion and pollution in the city of 1.7 million people.