The Trabzon Tram: Half a Century of Promises, Several Elections, One Groundbreaking

The economy of good news: the words that keep Trabzon waiting

In Trabzon the phrase “rail system” is no longer a transport project; it is a political ritual. As an election nears, route maps appear, protocols are blessed, and the words are “shortly”, “in this term”, “we start in 202X”. Once the polls close, the file moves to a ministry corridor, and the ministry corridor moves to the next campaign rally. The public, meanwhile, sits in the same choking traffic, in the same dolmuş queue, listening to the same promise in new packaging.

This is not a technical brochure about a tram. It is about how promises made to the public are used up by officials whose terms run out, and how postponements sold as “investment” turn into stalling. The quotations below are not invented — the names, dates and sources are set out plainly.

“There would have been rails if it had been us” — but there were none

In December 2013 Volkan Canalioğlu said that, had he remained in office, a rail line between Fatih Mahallesi and Atatürk Alanı would already have been running. At the same time the Orhan Fevzi Gümrükçüoğlu administration was saying the central line was not feasible; Canalioğlu pointed out the inconsistency of calling it “not feasible” while a railway featured in the “61 Projects” programme.

The real scandal here is less about who was right: years passed, the “we would have built it” rhetoric grew on both sides, and still no tram reached the people of Trabzon. The politics of blame was laid where the rails should have been.

2017–2018: “the project finishes this year”, “construction in 2018” — the result: a folder

In a written statement published by Anadolu Ajansı on 20 September 2017, Mayor Orhan Fevzi Gümrükçüoğlu announced that the light rail project would be complete by the end of 2017. The first phase was described as Akyazı to the airport, justified by the rising number of vehicles.

In the same period, route briefings openly stated the intention to start building the Akyazı–airport section during 2018. By October 2018 the public picture was “the project is finished, it has been handed to the minister, we are willing to pay in instalments” — a file handed over, not construction. The promise to “start in 2018” never came back as concrete and rail within that term of office.

It is a classic administrative manoeuvre: make the date look close, shift responsibility upwards, and when the term runs out say “we did what we could”. For the public the outcome is the same: transport promised, quality of life postponed.

The Zorluoğlu years: from “it will open in our term” to “the ministry will start shortly”

In March 2019, after the President’s rally in Trabzon, Murat Zorluoğlu said the rail line along the Akçaabat–Akyazı–KTÜ–Yomra–industrial zone corridor would “open to our fellow citizens in our term”. That is campaign language at its clearest: the term equals the opening. The term ended; the tram did not open.

At the September 2019 council meeting, the high cost, the need to update the project and the formula “shortly, within our means” were repeated. “Shortly” is not a measurable commitment; it is politics’ favourite slippery ground.

In October 2023 a decision published in the Official Gazette transferred the project to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. On the municipality’s own website, Zorluoğlu announced that the ministry would “start work shortly” and that four years of work had gone into it. So the “good news” offered to the public at the end of a four-year mayoral term was not a line in service; it was responsibility moving to the centre. Saying “it will start” as a term runs out is a way of deferring the reckoning on a promise already spent.

The Genç years: a “century-old dream”, protocols and a slipping timetable

On 20 March 2024 Ahmet Metin Genç said, “we will deliver the rail project that has been Trabzon’s dream for a century”, promising detailed designs by the end of 2024 and then a start on the first Akyazı–Meydan–airport section. In April 2024, on the ministry protocol, he said “we begin with bismillah” and “Samsun has one, my city will have one too”; the targets voiced were a start in 2025 and completion by 2028.

The timetable was then rewritten: “ground broken before 2026”, “the first months of 2026”, in June 2026 “breaking ground around the end of the month”, and finally the groundbreaking on 1 September 2026. The tender figure reported publicly is around 32.3 billion lira, with completion targeted for the end of 2029. Between the campaign’s “we start right away” and today’s “finished in 2029” lie years and billions.

Breaking ground matters; no one can deny that. But treating it as absolution for years of promises sold as “finished this term, started this year” is its own kind of double standard. People do not want the tram in the brochure; they want the one waiting at the stop.

The double standard: the politics of good news against the reality of traffic

Trabzon’s transport crisis is a pain everyone knows: a narrow coastal corridor, a growing number of vehicles, the load on dolmuş and bus services, and the congestion along the airport–university–hospital–stadium axis. A rail system is the technical answer to that pain. The political class, though, has mostly turned the answer into election material.

Here is the double standard. The same officials apply emotional pressure — “Trabzon is far behind”, “Samsun has one and we do not”, “the public expects it” — while quietly letting their own concrete dates be forgotten: end of 2017, construction in 2018, opening within the term, designs done in 2024, a start in 2025, completion in 2028. Every forgotten date is time taken from the public.

There is a second one: “the municipality cannot fund it, let the state build it.” The funding may genuinely be insufficient — that is arguable. What is not arguable is saying “it will open in our term” while knowing the funding is not there. Saying that knowingly is lulling the public to sleep.

The city has grown used to being kept waiting by deferred investment. The port, the land reclamation, the bypass, the “good news” trains, the “good news” trams — each a bridge to the next election. Under the bridges, the same traffic and the same wasted hope pile up.

Where do things stand today?

As of 1 September 2026, ground has been broken for phase one — the Karayolları / City Hospital–Stadium–Meydan–Bus Terminal–KTÜ–Airport line, about 16 km with 16 planned stations — and work has been announced at four points. There is no passenger service yet. The official target is the end of 2029.

This page also tracks the technical summary: length, stations, status. But the real reckoning is this: how many times were the people of Trabzon told “this time it will happen”, how many mayors’ terms ran out, how many elections passed? The answer is shameful — and the shame belongs to those who promised, not to the people who waited.

From here, the only honest language is this: publish the dates, explain the slippage, and talk about milestones and an auditable programme instead of “good news”. Anything else is the next scene of the same play.