Concept
The Amsterdam Metro (Amsterdamse metro) is a rapid transit system serving Amsterdam, Netherlands, and extending to the surrounding municipalities of Diemen and Ouder-Amstel. Until 2019 it also served the municipality of Amstelveen but this route was closed and converted into a tram line. The network is owned by the City of Amsterdam and operated by municipal public transport company Gemeente Vervoerbedrijf (GVB) which also operates trams, free ferries and local buses. The metro system consists of five routes and serves 39 stations, with a total length of . Three routes start at Amsterdam Centraal: Route 53 and Route 54 connect the city centre with the suburban residential towns of Diemen, Duivendrecht and Amsterdam-Zuidoost (the city's southeastern borough), while Route 51 first runs south and then follows a circular route connecting the southern and western boroughs. Route 50 connects Zuidoost to the Amsterdam-West borough using a circular line, which it shares with Route 51. It is the only route that does not cross the city centre. A fifth route, Route 52, running from the Amsterdam-Noord (north) borough to Amsterdam-Zuid (south) via Amsterdam Centraal, came into operation on 21 July 2018. As opposed to the other routes, it runs mostly through bored tunnels and does not share tracks with any other route. The first plans for an underground railway in Amsterdam date from the 1920s: in November 1922, members of the municipal council of Amsterdam Zeeger Gulden and Emanuel Boekman asked the responsible alderman Ter Haar to study the possibility of constructing an underground railway in the city, in response to which the municipal department of Public Works drafted reports with proposals for underground railways in both 1923 and 1929. These plans stalled in the planning phase, however, and it took until the 1950s for the discussion about underground rail to resurface again in Amsterdam.
