Rabat – The French Development Agency (AFD) and Casa Transport en Site Amenage SA have signed a loan agreement of €100 million to expand tramway lines in the city of Casablanca.
AFD shared a statement with Morocco World News explaining that the deal seeks to support Casa Transport to establish two new tramways to improve mobility for Casablanca residents.
The loan agreement includes a technical assistance grant of €5.5 million.
“This new financial and technical support from AFD to Casa transport consolidates the quality of their partnership relations and will expand the public transport offer [to be] accessible to as many people as possible,” AFD said.
The agreement also seeks to promote the use of a clean and low-carbon mode of transport and to improve the quality of public transportation, AFD added.
“Through this new partnership, AFD is supporting Casa Transport in setting up an efficient and low-carbon transport system that helps provide access to public transport services to as many people as possible,” France’s Ambassador to Morocco Helene Le Gal said of the agreement.
The partnership seeks to ensure the implementation of the T3 and T4 lines, constituting an “important step in the implementation of Casablanca’s urban travel plan,” said Nabil Belabed, the managing director of Casa Transport.
The Casa Transport top staff member added that the implementation of an urban travel plan is one of the ultimate objectives for the company to ensure a “quality public transport network as large as possible and offering efficient intermodality with other modes of transport.”
Mihoub Mezuahi, the director of AFD in Morocco, said the project seeks to promote access to people with limited mobility.
The AFD official said such a project also ensures the safety of public transport for women.
“Today, the tramway is the preferred mode of public transport for women in Casablanca,” he said.
Approximately 49% of T1 and T2 tramway lines are women, he pointed out.
Casa Transport said that the T3 line will stretch a 14-kilometer route with 20 stations.
“The construction work on line T3 will require the construction of an engineering structure at the level of the crossing of the ONCF [Railway Office] tracks.”
Meanwhile, T4 will have 19 stations over a length of 12.5 kilometers.
The T4 line will require the construction of two engineering structures at the level of crossing the ONCF tracks and the 13 motorway and its two ramps.
“These two lines will be carried out simultaneously according to a common schedule and will require an investment budget of 7 billion dirhams. Their provisional commissioning is scheduled for 2024,” Casa Transport said.
