Brussels Metro at 50: Celebrations Meet Line 3 Doubts

Brussels will mark the 50th anniversary of its metro on Sunday 20 September, a date that coincides with the city’s Car-Free Day. Inaugurated on 20 September 1976 by King Baudouin, the network is being celebrated with activities in stations, exceptional access to the Jacques Brel depot in Anderlecht and free travel across the STIB network. Yet the jubilee arrives with a paradox: the city is toasting five decades of underground ambition just as its most emblematic future project — Metro Line 3 — is frozen or being reconfigured amid cost overruns, technical problems and a strained regional budget.

A metro ‘the Belgian way’

According to RTBF, Brussels never sought to replicate the model of London, a pioneer since 1863, nor that of Paris, inaugurated for the 1900 Universal Exhibition. The Belgian capital arrived late to the underground adventure — it was preceded by 17 other metropolises — and its network remains among the youngest in Europe.

That delay says something about the city. Brussels is a medium-sized capital with a fragmented urban fabric, shaped by its 19 communes, its valleys, its former wetlands and a dense tram network. Rather than building one grand metro in a single gesture, authorities chose a gradual path: the premetro. Tunnels were dug to metro gauge but initially used by trams, easing congestion without waiting for heavy rolling stock or committing all the necessary budgets at once.

The first spades struck near the Schuman roundabout in 1965. On 17 December 1969, King Baudouin inaugurated the first premetro section between Schuman and De Brouckère — 3.6 kilometres and six stations. The first heavy metro opened on 20 September 1976, an 11-kilometre line linking De Brouckère to Beaulieu and Tomberg, with 45 trains mobilised for the inauguration.

Engineering under a city of water

Building a metro in Brussels has never been mere earthmoving. The capital rests partly on sandy, fragile and sometimes waterlogged subsoil. Crossing the canal or working near water tables demanded costly, complex methods.

Engineers deployed what became known as the “Brussels method”: building the tunnel walls and roof first, then excavating the earth beneath. In the wettest zones, the ground sometimes had to be frozen before concrete was poured — a technique used at Rogier, at the entrance to the Avenue Louise bottleneck and near the Gare du Midi. Under the Parc de Bruxelles, a giant boring shield was used to advance without destroying the green space. It is precisely this equation — fragile subsoil, urban constraints and high costs — that still weighs on Line 3.

A gallery, ghosts and a memory

The Brussels metro is more than platforms and connections. From the 1970s, new stations were conceived as art spaces. Today, more than 90 works decorate the platforms, corridors and mezzanines of 69 metro and premetro stations, according to STIB Stories. The emblematic white “M” on a blue background, marking metro entrances for half a century, was designed by Brussels sculptor Jean-Paul Emonds-Alt and chosen by public vote for its clarity.

The underground also preserves traces of unfinished projects. The best-known is the ghost station of Sainctelette, between Yser and Ribaucourt: its structure and platforms exist, but it never opened, judged too close to its neighbours. It represents roughly 5,000 square metres of unused infrastructure. In total, some 19,000 square metres of built-but-unused underground infrastructure were recorded by Brussels Mobility.

At Maelbeek, works by Benoît van Innis have become part of a place of memory since the attacks of 22 March 2016. As RTBF recalled, a bomb struck a train leaving Maelbeek towards Arts-Loi that morning, shortly after the Zaventem airport attacks, and the network was immediately closed. The metro has also served as a cultural backdrop: Stromae filmed a music video at Delta station, drawn, he said, by “the beautiful perspectives” of its long corridors.

Line 3: a future suspended

Line 3 was meant to transform the north-south premetro linking Albert to the Gare du Nord into a full metro, then extend north towards Schaerbeek and Bordet, with a view towards Evere and NATO. According to Wikipedia, the plan was approved in 2013, with construction scheduled to start in 2018 and the first metros running in 2022; by December 2022, completion was expected in 2032. Beliris builds the northern section, while STIB builds the rest; in June 2023, Beliris asked the Belgian federal government for help after delays and cost overruns.

The project ran into major difficulties: instability around the Palais du Midi, the late discovery of groundwater constraints, a dramatic cost increase and a tense regional budget. The North-Bordet section is suspended for an indefinite period. Excavation pits already dug near the Gare du Nord must now be backfilled, and public space re-landscaped.

STIB refuses the word “failure”. Its director-general, Brieuc de Meeûs, insists the project splits into two: the northern part, which will not be built immediately, and works that continue around the Albert–Gare du Nord axis, notably near the Gare du Midi and Avenue de Stalingrad. “No, it is not a failure,” he told RTBF. “It is just the image of the metro’s history […] built over 50 years, little by little, site after site, difficulty after difficulty.” He said the Avenue de Stalingrad would in a year and a half become “a Brussels rambla that everyone will envy”.

Brussels Mobility Minister Elke Van den Brandt (Groen) also defends a phased approach: finishing the infrastructure that already allows more tram capacity, while awaiting a possible metro restart when finances allow. “The big metro, project 3, will be put on pause. It is a budget question,” she said. “It is not a choice that amuses me as Mobility Minister […] But we can restart the site whenever we want.”

Critics and a governance reckoning

The future of the Palais du Midi has become a flashpoint. The associations Arau, Bral and Inter-Environnement Bruxelles (IEB) have again filed an appeal with the Council of State to try to prevent the building’s dismantling. “The destruction of the Palais du Midi would constitute an irreversible act, an irreparable loss for Brussels’ architectural and social heritage,” the three organisations said, as reported by RTBF and Belga. Residents who have endured construction for more than six years, they argue, “have the right to return to a normal life”.

Behind the controversy lies a governance reckoning. A special parliamentary commission on Metro 3, after months of hearings, concluded that the project was “born badly”: its governance was marked by a complex sharing of responsibilities between multiple institutional actors, its funding exceeded the Region’s own capacity from the outset, and its mechanisms of estimation, financing and risk management were fragile. The economic, social and urban impacts of the works “were underestimated”. The commission issued 24 recommendations, including a single accountable project pilot, mandatory re-evaluation with an “alarm bell” reporting mechanism, independent studies and mandated geotechnical studies before any works contract.

The report revealed a political split. The Brussels Parliament validated the recommendations on 18 July 2026 by 53 votes in favour, 20 against and 9 abstentions, as DHnet reported. The MR, whose Anne-Charlotte d’Ursel chaired the commission, welcomed the report as a governance turning point built on “a single pilot for major projects”. But the PTB’s Françoise De Smedt derided its conclusions: “Seven months of hearings to determine responsibility for the Metro 3 fiasco, all to end up with ‘everyone competent, no one responsible’.” For Ecolo’s Alain Maron, the Region continues to accept that all overruns fall on it, and it is “the absence of sufficient counter-powers” that caused the problems — not the appeals.

The view from the engineers

Retired STIB engineer Christian Dochy, 80, who spent his whole career building the network and has just published a book on its 50 years, is blunter still. In an interview with BRUZZ, he said: “At the Palais du Midi they really played the idiot.” Told by the special commission that there are no longer competent engineers, he argues the root of the problem lies there. “If I had had the say, Metro 3 would already be finished,” he said, adding that the northern extension “can only happen if the federal state pays”.

That funding question looms large. Experts argue that regionalised urban public transport needs federal funding, recalling that when the Region was created in 1989, technicians warned the budget should remain federal because regions lack the means. Already, STIB is tightening its belt: de Meeûs described a moratorium on commitments since 1 January, a government decision that has left the operator “living a little on cruise control”. “Doing better with less, I believe, is possible,” he said. “Up to a certain limit, obviously.”

What’s next

Sunday’s celebration — free travel, station events and rare access to the Jacques Brel depot — is also an invitation to look ahead. As the parliamentary commission itself put it, the Metro 3 project responds to “a real and lasting mobility need” in the north of the Region, and residents of Schaerbeek and Evere have waited more than 15 years for substantial reinforcement of public transport towards the city centre. Whether that need is met by metro or by tram, and whether Brussels or the federal state foots the bill, remains the open question at the heart of the anniversary. Fifty years on, the Brussels metro remains faithful to its own history: never quite finished, often contested, always indispensable.