Kongens Nytorv gets its linden trees back
Facts about the M3 line
The City Ring is approximately 15.5 kilometres long (two tunnel tubes all the way around the M3 line) and 17 underground stations connect Østerbro, Nørrebro, Frederiksberg, Vesterbro and City.
The M3 line is expected to open this summer, and with the new M3 metro line it will only take:
- Three minutes to get from Kongens Nytorv to Østerport
Three minutes to Copenhagen Central Station
Eleven minutes to Nørrebros Runddel
While the underground metro stations are being completed, the M3 line station squares are also being prepared at street level so that the areas can be handed back to the city's citizens and visitors.
At Kongens Nytorv, paving contractors are putting together approximately 900,000 cobblestones in the right pattern, and a total of 80 trees of the imperial linden variety are now being planted on Kongens Nytorv to recreate the familiar oval of trees.
The first tree was planted at Krinsen today by the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, with the help of students from Christianshavn School:
‘Now we will recreate Kongens Nytorv with the iconic green trees, and I'm sure that both Copenhageners and the city's guests are looking forward to having Kongens Nytorv and Krinsen back. The M3 line is a gigantic construction project that continues the development of Copenhagen as a green and climate-conscious city where we can easily and quickly get around without a car. It will be fantastic when we can start using the new metro line this summer,’ says Frank Jensen.
Kongens Nytorv station will be the only station where it is possible to change between all four metro lines (M1, M2, M3 and M4). With the opening of the M3 line, Kongens Nytorv station will become Denmark's third-largest station with an expected 90,000 daily passengers.
From the metro station under Krinsen, the two metro tunnels take a deep dive under the basement of Magasin. It is the steepest ‘hill’ in the Copenhagen Metro with a gradient of six per cent.
The tunnel tubes are laid 1.5 metres above the existing metro tunnels (M1 + M2) and four metres below Magasin's foundation.
Facts about Krinsen
Originally established in 1688, Krinsen is the name of the garden with an oval of double trees that surrounds the statue of Christian V on Kongens Nytorv. After being removed a few times, Krinsen was replanted with elm trees in 1914-15.
In 2001, Krinsen was again given two oval rows around the gardens, but due to Dutch elm disease (a disease of elm trees) lime trees were planted.
A greener city
The 80 lime trees that will adorn Kongens Nytorv in the future were purchased in Hamburg in 2013 and have since been at Birkholm Planteskole in Allerød, where they have now grown to over seven metres tall.
The trees have been lovingly cared for and have been pruned so that the branches of the trees form distinct ‘tiers’. The special design is reminiscent of the old days, and the task with the urban space at Krinsen is to recreate the square as it was.
As part of the efforts to make the M3 line even greener, the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg have decided to plant a total of 772 trees in the M3 line squares. This is significantly more trees than there were before the metro construction began.