On 28 November of that year, the newly re-elected mayor Seki announced that groundbreaking on the Imazato – Yuzato Rokuchōme extension, planned for 2006 with a 2016 opening, would be put on hold indefinitely due to the fiscal situation in Osaka. Because of this, the application for permission to start construction has been postponed. If the northern half opened in 2006 were to provide favorable ridership figures, the southern extension would have a chance of going on as planned. However, the other subway line inaugurated during the Heisei era (the Nagahori Tsurumi-ryokuchi Line) had yet to meet expectations a decade after opening (FY 2005 ridership: roughly 88,000 per day), despite passing through the city center; as such, the chance of the Imazatosuji Line, which did not pass through the city center, of meeting its ridership estimates and providing a stable financial base for a southward extension, was seen as extremely low. In addition, Osaka city had changed its future outlook for the Municipal Transportation Bureau from one of conversion to public holding / private operation to "full privatization including the possibility being listed on the stock exchange"; if this were to go ahead, the chance of the line's completion according to the original plans would go from slim to nearly none. Since that time, however, Kunio Hiramatsu was elected mayor in 2007, promising to maintain the region's public entities as-is, and deciding whether to privatize the Transportation Bureau by public referendum while in office. The financial situation of the Osaka Municipal Subway network has also stabilized since fiscal 2005 with a steady cumulative profit (even though four of eight lines are still not profitable on their own), perhaps making an extension more likely at some point in the future. However, on 28 August 2014, the extension to Yuzato Rokuchōme was mothballed, and the Osaka Municipal Transportation Bureau has considered light rail or bus rapid transit for further expansion of public transit services within Osaka, citing the high cost of building subway extensions and eventual privatization.
