Bucharest · 1952–2026
In 1952, according to the Romanian archive, Soviet counsellors rejected the Bucharest metro as a “premature aspiration”. In 1972–1975 Romania decided on a metro designed and built at home: 6 stations in November 1979, 64 today. Now the line to the airport is being dug.
Logo: Metrorex, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Every dot is a station drawn at its real coordinates. Drag the years to watch the network grow.
In 2023: station names open: 57
The whole network, 1979–2023: 57 distinctly named stations, coloured by opening year.
Metrorex reports 64 stations. The map draws one dot per station name: 57. Seven names — Basarab, Dristor, Eroilor, Gara de Nord, Nicolae Grigorescu, Piața Unirii and Piața Victoriei — have two components each in OpenStreetMap (“Dristor 1” and “Dristor 2”), and 57 + 7 = 64. The OpenStreetMap count matches the Metrorex report, but the report does not explain its counting method. The Dâmbovița is drawn from OpenStreetMap; the lines join the stations in route order.
The answer depends on what you call “opening”: there are four dates, within six weeks.
The first section had six stations, between Semănătoarea and Timpuri Noi.
The idea of a Bucharest metro is older than the refusal.
In 1907, as a fourth-year student at the Royal Technical School of Charlottenburg, near Berlin, Dimitrie Leonida drew up the project “Metropolitanul din București”: a line between Gara de Nord and Piața Sf. Gheorghe, with branches towards Calea Moșilor and Filaret station. His electricity professor helped him with documentation on the Berlin and London metros.
The project did not lead to a metro. The story documented in the archive cited below begins in 1952.
Approved in principle on 13 November 1952, rejected at the Soviet advisers' review.
On the morning of 13 November 1952, the Central Committee plenum debates three projects: rebuilding the cities, the socialist remaking of Bucharest and — third on the list — building the metro. All three pass. But the metro still needed a sign-off from outside the room.
The scale of the project demanded, writes the historian of the Bucharest City Museum, “consulting the Soviet counsellors in order to get their approval”. The answer came back curt: the project was rejected, “a premature aspiration of the Bucharest regime”. The reasoning cited the groundwater lying close to the surface, the seismic zone and the buildings hit by the 1940 earthquake — problems that, in the rejection's reasoning, required solutions “impossible for the socialist camp”.
The Soviet model meant stations 20–40 metres deep, doubling as wartime shelters, on the Moscow pattern: a metro too expensive for Romania's 1952 economy. The metro was postponed for twenty years.
Attributed The rejection appears only in the Romanian archive cited by Buiumaci. Moscow-side documents were not consulted.
The project was rejected, considered a premature aspiration of the Communist regime in Bucharest.
Cezar Petre Buiumaci, Urbanitas, 2020
From the 1972 commission to the January 1975 meeting.
On 15 February 1972, in the meeting of the Executive Political Committee, Nicolae Ceaușescu decides on “setting up a commission that would elaborate proposals concerning the development of public transportation in Bucharest, in particular by building transportation systems with electric means of great capacity and speed, as well as the construction of the subway”. Meanwhile the Titan–Balta Albă and Drumul Taberei–Militari estates had filled the city with people the trams could no longer hold.
The tone is set by the meeting of 17 January 1975, which approves the draft decree founding the Bucharest Metro enterprise. The transcript keeps Ceaușescu blunt: “I have seen the organisation problems, but I must tell you that everything has to be executed in the country, including the shields.” The shields — the machines that dig tunnels — were to be designed and cast in Romania. The programme thus aimed at domestic design, equipment and construction; outside technical advice still appears in the source, from Hanover (see below).
Works start in April 1975, and the enterprise soon gathers specialists from railways, hydropower plants, mines and buried utilities — the people who already knew how to dig in Romania. But the deadlines are so tight that the design–prototype–test–redesign–series principle is simply abandoned: stages get “burned”.
Muddy ground, groundwater and unmapped utilities.
The first buckets meet what everyone feared: muddy ground, heavy infiltration along the whole route. The soil had been investigated too little, and the shields — open-front, hand-dug — advanced through practically unknown ground, under old and vulnerable buildings, with too few skilled workers for such a job.
Groundwater remains the greatest problem: the strata change every few metres, and the pumps barely keep up. On one section the freezing of the groundwater is tried experimentally — an expensive, slow fix on a hurried site. Many techniques are applied “on the move”, against the clock, to catch the deadlines.
When outside help comes, it does not come from the East: Professor Herald Wagner, of the Hanover Technical University, visits the site and leaves one plain piece of advice — where hydrogeological studies are missing, drill probe boreholes and choose the fix case by case.
Line 1, in the builder's figures (Constantinescu et alii 1988, via Buiumaci):
19 November 1979: a train with people in it leaves Ciurel depot.
On 19 November 1979, the first metro train leaves Ciurel depot for Semănătoarea station, and passengers board from the platform. The other three dates, from the public trials to the reception, are in the timeline at the start.
A month of trials with people in the cars follows. Attributed The Metrorex history calls it unique in the world; the uniqueness could not be verified independently.
The first section measures 8.63 km and six stations: Semănătoarea, Grozăvești, Eroilor, Izvor, Piața Unirii, Timpuri Noi. The older history gives 8.1 km; 8.63 km is the length in the 2024 Metrorex report.
12 metres
is the average depth of a Bucharest metro station. The 1952 Soviet model demanded 20–40 metres: a shelter-metro, Moscow-style. Bucharest dug much shallower: 12 metres is about seven people standing head to toe; 40 metres would have been about twenty-four.
Average depth: metrorex.ro, via Buiumaci 2020. The 20–40 m demand: Udriște 2009, via Buiumaci.
Five lines, 78.7 km of double track, 64 stations.
Station counts by line add up to 71 because an interchange counts on every line. Each name once: 57; the explanation is under the map.
Six stations of 19 November 1979, photographed today — the same network, the same walls.
152.0 million
metro journeys in 2024 — 6.5% more than in 2023. On average, about 400,000 a day; in normal conditions, about 500,000. A fifth of Bucharest's public-transport journeys, on a twentieth of the network's length. M1 and M2 alone carry 78% of the journeys.
Metrorex, activity report for 2024.
The map of names
In 1989 four stations bore factory names and only one bore a person's: a communist general. Today two still bear factory names, and nine are named after people.
Metrorex changed eight names at once, “to match them to the current realities of Bucharest”.
The first list had ten. Timpuri Noi and Apărătorii Patriei kept their names.
Ceaușescu did not choose the names. “The station names were given at the design stage, after the name of the place where each would be built,” said Gheorghe Udriște, a former director of Metrorex. The planners took their names from what stood above: Semănătoarea, the farm-machinery works; IMGB, the heavy-machinery plant; Republica and Timpuri Noi.
The city above changed, and some of the names fell behind. In 2009 Metrorex renamed several stations: Semănătoarea became Petrache Poenaru, IMGB became Dimitrie Leonida, Industriilor became Preciziei, Armata Poporului (“People’s Army”) became Lujerului. Udriște said one station had to carry the name of Dimitrie Leonida, the first to think of a metro for Bucharest.
Names change slowly, though. On 7 September 2023 Metrorex’s board proposed starting the process to rename Timpuri Noi after Octavian Udriște, the engineer who played a decisive part in opening the first section in 1979. In Metrorex’s report for 2024 the station is still called Timpuri Noi.
Switch the map to 1989 to see the network as it was, with its 35 stations, or tap any station for the story of its name.
Grouped by what they name today. Struck-through names are the old ones.
The Bucharest metro has one documented ghost station: a level built at Gara de Nord where no train has ever stopped.
Gara de Nord was designed as two stacked stations, the end of two lines: one from Titulescu Boulevard and Piața Victoriei, the other heading west. Ceaușescu demanded a single station that trains would run through. Both levels had already been built. “Below, we have a station filled with earth,” Octavian Udriște told HotNews. Trains on the level in use now take a 90-metre-radius curve at 30 km/h.
The other ghosts are on paper: a deep network, planned in 1952 to double as a shelter; a 40-kilometre ring in the 1974 plan; an extension of M5 to Pantelimon that Metrorex now schedules “after 2040”.
M6, from 1 Mai to Otopeni Airport, is the only new line under construction. Progress and forecast are in the next chapter.
They exist, but carry no passengers.
Built in the 1980s
Gara de Nord was designed as two stacked stations, the end of two lines. Both had been built, including the tunnel to Basarab, when Ceaușescu demanded a single through station. Octavian Udriște says the lower level is filled with earth; other accounts call it storage space. No photograph of it is known from before it was covered.
Mothballed
The metro has two links to the rail network: at Berceni, to the rail ring, and at Ciurel, through an underground passage to the Cotroceni–Militari industrial line. The Ciurel link is unused and mothballed. The year it closed is unknown.
Sources: 1
Stopped or abandoned for a while, then finished.
1989–2000
Work on M4, begun in December 1989, stopped in 1994; after that only the seeping water was pumped out. The tunnels deformed, and in 1996 the pumping was abandoned too. A 1997 European Investment Bank loan paid for repairs; the line opened on 1 March 2000.
Sources: 1
Opened in 1988
The station was dropped from the plan; Octavian Udriște says this happened before work began, other accounts say after. He attributes the decision to Elena Ceaușescu, who reportedly said students could walk. It was built after all, its platforms squeezed outside concrete walls already cast. That is why it is so narrow. It opened in 1988.
Lines and stations from older official or strategic plans. Some still appear on maps.
1952–1954
A metro design institute was set up in 1952. On the Soviet model, the network was also to be a shelter, 20–40 m deep, with four lines. The cost was too high: the institute was dissolved and the metro shelved indefinitely.
Sources: 1
1974
The plan approved in October 1974 had three lines; the third was a 40 km ring. The ring was never built, and the name M3 went to an east–west line. Why it was dropped is not known.
Sources: 1
The 1980s
A line was to come along Titulescu Boulevard from Piața Victoriei and end at Gara de Nord, in a station stacked on the one for the westward line. Ceaușescu rejected the stacked stations, and M1 trains now run through Gara de Nord on towards Piața Victoriei.
Sources: 1
Plan, no date: after 2040
The eastern end of M5, to Pantelimon, was deferred because STB trams already run along the same route. Metrorex now schedules it “after 2040”. It stays in the plan, with no date.
Strategic plan, no contract
An older strategic plan: M8 would link Crângași and Dristor through the south. The Transport Ministry has announced the prospect of closing the central ring, but according to a parliamentary question of 6 April 2026 the new line projects range from concept to feasibility study and none has a signed construction contract. Romanian Wikipedia gives it as unscheduled before 2030, because of cost.
Four projects at four stages: construction, design with investigation, design and permitting, feasibility study. A signed contract or a study does not mean works have started. Checked 3 October 2026.
Structural works since December 2023
M6 is the only new line under construction. Alsim Alarko–Makyol is building the southern section, 1 Mai–Tokyo; Gülermak–Somet the northern one, Tokyo–Otopeni Airport, 7.6 km long with six stations. In September 2026 the structural shell was 76% done in the south and 33.47% in the north. Metrorex estimate of 2 November 2025: opening in 2028 or early 2029. Metrorex data from March 2026, quoted in a parliamentary question of 6 April 2026, put completion of the structural shell in the second quarter of 2029, and the deputy who asked the question reckons passenger service cannot begin before 2030–2031. Forecasts, not opening dates. Last checked 3 October 2026.
Design and geotechnical investigation · latest data: 10 June 2026
The M4 extension from Gara de Nord to Gara Progresul, about 11–12 km: 14 new stations according to the Sector 4 mayor; 13 new ones plus the existing Gara de Nord 2 in the Transport Ministry's data. Start orders for design and construction were issued in December 2025 (lot 1) and February 2026 (lot 2). Geotechnical drilling began in May, and on 10 June 2026 the Transport Ministry signed the documentation that unblocks payments for the design phase. The design deadline was September 2026; construction proper follows, which the mayor expects to finish in 2033.
Design and permitting · expected 2034
M5's central section is 5.2 km long, with six stations. It is still being designed and permitted; construction has not begun. Metrorex expects tenders between June 2027 and May 2028 and completion in 2034. The Eroilor–Universitate stretch from the original plan was deferred into this stage.
Feasibility study · contract of 23 Sept. 2026
M7 appears in the urban mobility plan with two route options. On 23 September 2026 Sector 5 signed the contract for the feasibility study: about 26 km and 27 stations. Construction has not begun.
Stories that circulate, with what the sources say about them.
The 1980s
Some versions of the story give Ceaușescu a private metro line running as far as Otopeni. It has never been proved to exist. A Metrorex director acknowledged a tunnel between Casa Poporului and Izvor, and described it as a defence tunnel with no trains.
Legend
An urban legend says an Astra IVA train was trapped on the upper level of the two-level tunnel at Gara de Nord when M4 works cut the tracks, and was scrapped there in 2017.
Sources: 1
Myth
An anonymous internet story describes an old flooded station with its stairs visible under water. The press treats it as an unproven myth.
Sources: 1
The network has 64 stations and the airport line is under construction. The other projects are at different stages, from design to feasibility study.
The network designed in 1972–1975 lies, on average, 12 metres deep, not 20–40. From 1979 to 1989, 35 of the 57 distinctly named stations of today's network opened.
After 1989 the pace dropped: three stations in the 1990s. Work on M4, begun in December 1989, stopped in 1994; the tunnels deformed, and in 1996 the pumping was abandoned too. A 1997 loan from the European Investment Bank paid for repairs, and the line opened on 1 March 2000. Then the network grew again: five stations in the 2000s, four in 2010–2019 and ten in 2020–2023, nine of them at once in 2020, on M5 towards Drumul Taberei, a western district.
Today the only new line under construction, for Metrorex, the state company that runs the metro, is M6, from 1 Mai, a station in the north of the city, to Henri Coandă International Airport, Bucharest's main airport, in the suburb of Otopeni: 14.2 km and 12 stations, with stops named Tokyo, Piața Montreal, Expoziției and Bruxelles. Work began on 15 December 2023.
In September 2026, according to the Metrorex construction journal, the structural shell (station boxes and tunnels, without track, systems or trains) was 76% done on the southern section, 1 Mai–Tokyo, and 33.47% on the northern one, Tokyo–Otopeni Airport. On 3 September the tunnel-boring machine named Sfânta Ana (Saint Anne) broke through the wall of Piața Montreal station; on 26 September it set off for Expoziției station, which the second machine, Sfânta Maria, was also approaching.
Trains: in March 2026 Metrorex had postponed the tender for rolling stock to the second half of 2026, and Alstom Romania's general director, Gabriel Stanciu, advised allowing at least 36 months for delivery.
Line M6 in September 2026 (Metrorex construction journal, structural shell):
You are driving the 19 November 1979 train. Six stations, six questions — bring them all in on time.
Five claims that go around, checked against documents.
What is said. The date goes around in shorthand.
What the sources show. “16 December” mixes 16 November with 19 December. The four real dates are at the start of the page.
Limit. The source of the confusion: November versus December, in the same winter.
What is said. That is what the English Wikipedia says.
What the sources show. The 2024 Metrorex report gives 78.7 km of double track. The per-line lengths add up to 88.03 km, because the shared section is counted twice.
Limit. 80.1 km is the English Wikipedia figure; the official figure kept is 78.7 km.
What is said. That is what the older Metrorex history gives.
What the sources show. The 2024 report gives 8.63 km for the same section. Both figures are attested; the one kept is 8.63 km, from the 2024 report.
Limit. Metrorex does not explain the 530-metre difference.
What is said. A month of trials with passengers, between 16 November and 19 December 1979.
What the sources show. So the Metrorex history claims. The month of trials is documented; the worldwide uniqueness could not be verified independently.
Limit. Verified: the month of trials. Unverified: the uniqueness.
What is said. A decades-old metro means palace-stations at great depth.
What the sources show. The average is 12 metres. Depths of 20–40 metres were the demand of the 1952 Soviet school — the very one that was rejected.
Limit. 12 metres is the network average, not the depth of every station.
What stays unresolved.
Five short answers.
The answer depends on what you call “opening”: there are four dates, within six weeks. 16 November 1979: experimental service open to the public; 19 November 1979: the first metro train leaves Ciurel depot for Semănătoarea; passengers board from the platform; 19 December 1979: the official opening, with the ribbon cutting; 27 December 1979: the acceptance report is signed. The first section had six stations, between Semănătoarea and Timpuri Noi.
Metrorex reports 64 stations. The map draws one dot per station name: 57. Seven names — Basarab, Dristor, Eroilor, Gara de Nord, Nicolae Grigorescu, Piața Unirii and Piața Victoriei — have two components each in OpenStreetMap (“Dristor 1” and “Dristor 2”), and 57 + 7 = 64. The OpenStreetMap count matches the Metrorex report, but the report does not explain its counting method.
12 metres on average — about seven people standing head to toe. The 1952 Soviet demand was 20–40 metres: a shelter-metro, Moscow-style.
Ceaușescu did not choose the names. “The station names were given at the design stage, after the name of the place where each would be built,” said Gheorghe Udriște, a former director of Metrorex.
There is no opening date. Metrorex estimate of 2 November 2025: opening in 2028 or early 2029. Metrorex data from March 2026, quoted in a parliamentary question of 6 April 2026, put completion of the structural shell in the second quarter of 2029, and the deputy who asked the question reckons passenger service cannot begin before 2030–2031. Forecasts, not opening dates. Last checked 3 October 2026. In September 2026, according to the Metrorex construction journal, the structural shell (station boxes and tunnels, without track, systems or trains) was 76% done on the southern section, 1 Mai–Tokyo, and 33.47% on the northern one, Tokyo–Otopeni Airport.
The political chronology and the digging figures come from Buiumaci 2020 (Urbanitas, Bucharest City Museum), citing Udriște 2009, Constantinescu et alii 1988, Ianuş 2015 and SANIC transcripts. The network, the sections and the journeys come from the Metrorex activity report for 2024. The month of trials with people comes from the Metrorex history reproduced by Evenimentul zilei (2014).
The station coordinates, the colours and the Dâmbovița come from OpenStreetMap (ODbL). The per-station years come from the station list (English Wikipedia), checked against the Metrorex sections. The derived figures (percentages, daily averages, Olympic pools) start from the numbers in the sources above.
