Imazatosuji Line - Controversy Over Planned Extension

Controversy Over Planned Extension

While planned as the first of two phases of construction, the segment between Itakano and Imazato alone cost 271.8 billion yen to build. If the extension of the line to its intended terminus at Yuzato Rokuchōme were to continue as planned, assessment and construction would cost an additional 132 billion yen, substantially increasing the financial burdern on Osaka city. For this reason, then-mayor Junichi Seki ran for re-election in 2005 promising to bring the planned line extension up for review.

On 28 November of that year, the newly re-elected mayor Seki announced that groundbreaking on the Imazato – Yuzato Rokuchōme extension, planned for 2006 with a 2016 opening, would be put on hold indefinitely due to the fiscal situation in Osaka. Because of this, the application for permission to start construction has been postponed. If the northern half opened in 2006 were to provide favorable ridership figures, the southern extension would have a chance of going on as planned. However, the other subway line inaugurated during the Heisei era (the Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line) had yet to meet expectations a decade after opening (FY 2005 ridership: roughly 88,000 per day), despite passing through the city center; as such, the chance of the Imazatosuji Line, which did not pass through the city center, of meeting its ridership estimates and providing a stable financial base for a southward extension, was seen as extremely low. In addition, Osaka city had changed its future outlook for the Municipal Transportation Bureau from one of conversion to public holding / private operation to "full privatization including the possibility being listed on the stock exchange"; if this were to go ahead, the chance of the line's completion according to the original plans would go from slim to nearly none. Since that time, however, Kunio Hiramatsu was elected mayor in 2007, promising to maintain the region's public entities as-is, and deciding whether to privatize the Transportation Bureau by public referendum while in office. The financial situation of the Osaka Municipal Subway network has also stabilized since fiscal 2005, with a steady cumulative profit (even though four of eight lines are still not profitable on their own), perhaps making an extension more likely at some point in the future.

In addition to the originally-planned southern extension, there have also been considerations of extending the line northward from Itakano towards Shōjaku on the Hankyu Kyoto Line and Kishibe or Senrioka on the Tōkaidō Main Line (JR Kyoto Line). (The start of the line at Itakano is listed as 3.3 km in the proposal, and 3.3 km from Itakano would be precisely at Senrioka.) There have also been calls to extend the line even further towards Esaka or Momoyamadai, to allow a direct connection to the Midōsuji Line, or to Bampaku-kinen-kōen to connect to the Osaka Monorail. In spite of these ideas, in addition to the fiscal considerations concerning the southern extension, there is also the matter of a northern extension being outside Osaka city, making it even more unlikely.