73 km of Riyadh metro to be underground

More than 73.4 km of the metro in the capital would be underground.
One of the world's largest metro projects, this automatic driverless network will be over 170 km and have 87 stations on six lines, and is scheduled for completion in 2018, said the High Commission for the Development of Riyadh (HCDR).
The HCDR said the SR30-billion train network would have the tunnels concentrated in the most densely populated parts of the city with the most traffic congestion.
The underground tunnels are 41.7 percent of the total length of the project. This includes the 12.9-km King Abdulaziz line from King Abdullah Road to the King Abdulaziz Historical Center. About 3.3 km of the King Abdullah Road line will be underground, while the middle part of the 17.3 km Al-Olaya/Al-Batha line will consist of one tunnel that will extend from Al-Murooj neighborhood to Qasr Al-Hukum area.
The HCDR said that 10.7 percent of the metro would run on the level of the city's roads over 18.9 km.
About 47 percent of the metro, or 83.8 km, would run on elevated overpasses in the northern, southern and western parts of the city.
The HCDR stated previously that the project has assigned a color code for each line through the city.
The blue metro serves the Olaya-Batha line, green the King Abdullah Road line, red the Madinah-Prince Saad bin Abdulrahman Al-Awal line, orange the King Khaled Airport Road line, yellow the underground tunnel line along King Abdulaziz Street between King Abdulaziz Historical Center and the Riyadh Airbase, and the purple the Abdulrahman bin Auf and Al-Sheikh Hassan bin Hussain line.