Alma Ata

Construction is set to resume on the Almaty, Kazakhstan metro following a 6-year delay due to shortage of funds. Seven km have already been dug fin the late 1980s. Consultancy work has recently been carried out by the Québec firm SNC-Lavalin. (May 3rd)

Work on the Almaty metro ceased in 2000, when the workers went on strike because they had not been paid. At that point, 7.5 km had been completed. Previously, in 1993, a newspaper was sued for libel and subsequently went out of business because of it's accusations that the municipal agency charged with subway construction was in league with criminal elements, or the feared Kazakh Mafia. Another difficulty has been rising costs due to unexpected geological difficulties in this earthquake friendly netropolis.

As of November 2003, no further work has been completed.


Almaty's streetcar system opened in 1937. Upon metro construction, 8 of Almaty's 10 lines were terminated. Today, two remain. They total 23 km.

Almaty tramway fan site
Monorail pie in the sky proposal
Photos

Astana

There are plans, now just pipe dreams, to build a light rail as well as a subway in the country's new capital, which was established in 1997. The city's trolleybus system was opened in 1983 and so far, public transportation remains poor..

Öskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk)
tramway

1959, 16.5 km. 4 routes

ERS photos

Pavlodar
tramway

1965, 43.3 km

Warning: If you plan to visit Pavlodar to ride the tramway, avoid it from around May 20 – June 20, because "swarms of small, black, biting river flies cover the entire city."

Map

Temirtau
tramway

Opened in 1959, this sleepy burg of 110,000 enjoys 27.5 km of track miles on it's tramway system.  Ispet Karmet, a worldwide steel conglomerate, owns and runs the Termitau tramway, as well as the water and electricity.