the 2011 general election, Yıldırım was elected for a third consecutive time from İzmir's second electoral district. Due to the AKP's three-term limit on its MPs, Yıldırım was unable to seek re-election for a fourth time in the June 2015 general election. However, he re-entered Parliament from İzmir's first electoral district during the November 2015 snap general election seven months later. On February 18, 2019, the speaker of the Turkish Parliament Binali Yildirim announced that he would resign due to the fact that he would run for mayor of Istanbul in the local elections to be held in Turkey on March 31, 2019. Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communication Binali Yıldırım has been referred to as the AKP's 'unchanging Transport Minister' due to his almost uninterrupted 11-year term in office. The only other non-independent AKP politician to hold the post before Yıldırım became Prime Minister was Lütfi Elvan, who succeeded Yıldırım in 2013 and served until 2015. Yıldırım served as the Minister of Transport between November 2002 and November 2011, leaving office three months before the 2007 general election and the 2011 general election in accordance to Article 114 of the Turkish constitution, which requires the vacation of the partisan Minister of Transport and his or her replacement by an independent minister three months before the end of a parliamentary term. In November 2011, the portfolios of maritime and communications were merged with the Transport Ministry, with Yıldırım becoming the first Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication. He left office during a cabinet reshuffle in 2013, but was reinstated as Minister by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on 24 November 2015. On his personal website, Yıldırım has claimed that 17,500 kilometers of new motorways, 29 new airports and 1,213 kilometers of high-speed railway were constructed during his term as Minister. Rail network expansion In 2003, the government launched Turkey's first high-speed rail project, the Hızlandırılmış tren ("Fast train"). On 4 January 2004, Yıldırım oversaw the launch of construction works on the first branch between Ankara and Eskişehir, that was eventually inaugurated in 2009 with total costs of ₺7.5 million to upgrade the tracks, rolling stock and increase the speed of trains on the route to . At the same time, work was completed to increase the average train speeds to throughout Turkey. In 2014, the line, operated by a subsidiary of the Turkish State Railways (TCDD), was extended to İstanbul, completing