Moscow’s new circumferential rail line

There are only a tiny number of fully developed circumferential metro lines in the world, that is, circular or ring lines that intersect with several radial lines and that therefore enormously increase potential interconnections. Curiously, many of these lines were not really planned as circumferential metro lines at all. The earliest example is the Circle Line in London, which runs on a right of way that mostly dates to the 1860s and 1870s. The “Inner Circle” was a byproduct of the Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways’ need to bypass the central part of the City of London and was not bisected by radial “tube” lines until the 1890s. Tokyo’s Yamanote line, probably the busiest urban circumferential line in the world, has in some ways a similar history. It’s a late 19th-/early 20th-century railroad line that existed before Tokyo had any subway lines. Beijing’s first Ring Line, completed in 1987, was also built before there were a substantial number of radial lines to connect with. It was essentially constructed in conjunction with the removal of the old city wall.

Moscow’s Ring Line was probably the first circumferential line planned as such. It was built between 1950 and 1954 when Moscow had three radial lines crossing in its center. The Ring Line, running very approximately 3 km from the city center, not only increased connections but also provided access to most of the mainline railway terminals. Moscow’s original Ring Line was in some sense a model for later planned ring lines: the circular part of Seoul’s Line 2; Shanghai’s Line 4; Beijing’s second Ring Line (Line 10); the Oedo Line in Tokyo (run as a closed U rather than a circle); the not-yet-quite-complete Circle Line in Singapore; Taipei’s planned Circle Line; and the projected Grand Paris Express line. All of these were built—or are planned to be built—to complement a substantial number of radial lines.

Moscow has just acquired its second circumferential line, the 54-km-long Moscow Central Ring Line (Московское центральное кольцо, which can also be translated Moscow Central Circle Line), which runs at an average distance of approximately 8 km from the city center.

Map of the Central Ring Line, showing its relationship to the older, mostly radial Metro lines. (Two of the short non-radial lines are isolated fragments of Moscow’s planned third circumferential line). Raw GIS data (which I’ve had to modify) are from OpenStreetMap. Map compiled with ArcGIS.

The Central Ring Line opened on September 10, and I rode it last week. Like Tokyo’s Yamanote line, it was originally built as a railroad line. The tracks and right of way, controlled by Russian Railways, had been used only for freight for nearly 100 years. A decision was made a few years ago to reuse the right of way for a second circumferential passenger line. The tracks were completely rebuilt, and the line was electrified. The trains are still run by Russian Railways, but the line is labeled Line 14 of the Metro, and a Metro ticket provides access. The stations on the line were self-consciously set up to be as close to Metro stations as possible, although there are some gaps of as much as 750 meters, and there are as yet hardly any underground passages between the older Metro lines and the Central Ring Line.¹ Moscow uses electronic tickets only, so free transfers present no administrative difficulties, but long outdoor walks in January are probably not much fun.

Central Ring Line train crossing the Moscow River. Note Moskva-Siti in the background.

The trains are state-of-the-art. The Lastochka rolling stock is modern. There is free wifi. Stations have countdown clocks. Verbal and visual announcements are made in Russian and English. Bicycles may be brought on board. The trains even have toilets. The author of a newspaper story in Novaia gazeta said that riding the trains made her feel that she was in Europe.²

Delavoĭ t͡sentr station. Note the bicycles.

Trains do not run as often as on the traditional Metro lines, where headways of 90 or 95 seconds are common. They only operate every six to twelve minutes depending on the time of day. Trains for the moment are much shorter than the stations. Most of the trains I took were pretty full, but there were only a few standees. This suggests that current service levels approximately meet needs. Of course, a twelve minute wait for a train can play havoc with a commute.

Inside a train. Note the Roman-alphabet sign (it alternates with a Cyrillic sign).

The logic underlying the building of the line is the same logic underlying the building of other circumferential lines. The connectivity of the Metro system has been increased enormously. Movement from one suburban area to another no longer requires travel to the center. The line was also built to reduce crowding on central city lines and especially the original Ring Line. The Moscow Metro, despite the growth of automobile use in the city, is still patronized as heavily as it’s ever been. There are approximately 6,000,000 passengers a day, and trains can be very crowded. Moscow’s population, unlike that of most European cities, has been growing quickly, so some kind of relief has been felt to be essential.

The Moscow Central Ring Line has another function. It helps redress a fundamental imbalance in Moscow’s geography. The city’s center has been booming.³ Relatively wealthy people have increasingly been choosing to live there, and there are elaborate and growing facilities for tourists. The center is full of restored (or reconstructed!) historical buildings, shiny new hotels, restaurants, and high-end shops. Much of the central city has been rearranged so that in many ways it’s become more like a Western European city. There are heavily-used pedestrianized streets, for example, and even some bicycle paths (although, except for those in parks, these seem to be very lightly used). The Central Ring Line, especially in its eastern half, directly serves some of Moscow’s rather grubby inner suburbs. A newspaper story even called it “a gift from the powerful to the poor.”⁴ If it was a gift, it was something of a Trojan horse. The industrial areas through which much of the Line passes are overdue for redevelopment, and one of the goals of the establishment of the Central Ring Line was to encourage this process. One old industrial (and mining!) area next to the line has already become “Moskva-Siti” (more formally the Moscow International Business Center), the location of six of Europe’s seven tallest buildings (see photo above).

I had last been in Moscow in 2000, and it was clear then that the rise of automobile ownership had had an unusually harsh effect on the quality of life for non-automobile users. Car drivers seemed never to give pedestrians the right-of-way and paid little attention to red lights, and they felt able to park anywhere.

Things have changed. Automobile drivers are now far more likely to stop at crosswalks for pedestrians than drivers in most of the United States. Red lights are usually obeyed. Parking rules are often respected. It’s not that Moscow has become a paradise for pedestrians. It can be a very long wait for red lights to change. Nothing has been done about Soviet planning’s insistence that pedestrians cross major streets through tunnels—which never have escalator access. And the hard-to-avoid, enormously wide prospekty that were bulldozed through the city during Soviet times now carry mind-bogglingly large amounts of noisy, polluting traffic and are very peculiar places for casual walking. But Moscow really isn’t a bad place for pedestrians at all, and there are a lot of them. You will have company in even the most pedestrian-unfriendly places. Some Muscovites seem to be in the habit of walking nearly as much as, say, some New Yorkers.

A factor here is that rail rapid transit—an essential complement to comfortable pedestrian life in most big cities—is once again being heavily supported by the government. The Metro remains one of the wonders of the world. Even if ponderous Soviet aesthetics are not your thing, a few of the stations in the central city would seem extraordinary to anyone. Trains run as frequently as they do anywhere. And the Metro is growing more than any other European rail transit system. The Central Ring Line is not the only new route. Several additional new line segments have opened recently, and more are on the way. The largest-scale component of this will be the Third Interchange Contour (Третий пересадочный контур in Russian), a third circumferential line, overlapping (and somewhat to the south of) the Central Ring Line and more fully integrated with existing Metro lines. For a city like Moscow, where settlement extends more or less evenly in all directions, a system of multiple radial and circumferential rail transit lines—which transit blogger Jarrett Walker calls a “polar grid“—really makes sense, and the fact that plans to build this are actually being carried out is pretty impressive.