‘The Green Corridor would be a better alternative to the Middle and Northern corridors’

The development of China – Europe traffic and the necessary infrastructure is constantly ongoing. The Middle Corridor, an alternative to traffic through Russia, is the centrepiece of these efforts. But while an end to the war seems to be inching closer, a Ukrainian project sees an entirely new corridor as a much better choice: The Green Corridor.

This article is the first out of a series of three about rail infrastructure in western Ukraine. The second article will cover TEN-T and rail infrastructure. The last article will cover sorting hubs, stations and gauge change hubs.

The idea for the Green Corridor arose in 2016, when Boris Ganaylyuk talked to his friends in urban development about the rail situation around Lviv, in western Ukraine. The urban planner friends, Rostyslav Bilynskyy and Yuri Stolyarov, were looking to reduce the noise disturbances caused by rail freight traffic and introduce urban passenger transportation.

They started researching, much aided by Bilynskyy’s expertise as the head of Lviv’s Institute of Spatial Development. However, Ganaylyuk explains, the railway infrastructure around Lviv has historically been focused on long-distance freight and passenger transportation: It was too important for business, complicating the urban design ambitions.

These studies became the basis for Lemberger Linien, a special project company that is now promoting the Green Corridor and a new vision for …