It’s time for a metro station at Flagey, says Brussels-City councillor

With the regional and federal elections just two weeks away, Campaigning is heating up in Belgium. The latest campaign video to come out of Brussels is a plea by Flemish party Open VLD to build a metro station under Flagey.

Anyone who commutes to the neighbourhood regularly knows exactly how amazing that would be. “If we started digging tomorrow, we’d be there in five months,” says Els Ampe, Brussels-City councillor. Ampe was previously reponsible for mobility and public works on the council.

It would cost €150 million, she says, before taking the Groen party to task for blocking the suggestion time and again. “It’s really crowded here, and the trams and busses are packed full.”

While Groen has not reacted to the video, the party has in the past been more hesitant about enthusiastically supporting metro lines than it has about tramlines, which it sees as less intrusive in terms of construction.

“Experts with Stib have already proposed that we extend the metro from Porte de Namur to Flagey because Ixelles is such a dense populated area,” Ampe told Bruzz. With trams, busses and cars, the area around Place Flagey is just so hectic, and there’s not enough space for cyclists and pedestrians.”

Ampe is currently part of the Brussels parliament, but she is leading Open VLD’s list in this election for the Flemish parliament. “It’s crucial that we extend the metro into Flanders,” she told Bruzz, “but we need to get them in the right places in Brussels first in order to do that. We have tried every other option; we can only solve Brussels’ traffic problems with the metro.”

Photo courtesy Greisch

This article was updated on 14 May