Transport
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010MOSCOW METRO – engl.mosmetro.ru
Moscow metropolitan, which was opened on May 15, 1935 is the main public transport of the capital connecting the central part of the city with industrial and residential areas.
In total, the Moscow Metro has 298.8 km of route length, 12 lines, and 180 stations; on a normal weekday it carries over 7 million passengers. Passenger traffic is considerably lower on weekends, bringing the average daily passenger traffic during the year to 6.6 million passengers per day. The Moscow Metro is a state-owned enterprise.
Each line is identified by an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of just a number), a name, and a colour. The voice announcements refer to lines by name, while in colloquial usage they are mostly referred to by colour, except the Kakhovskaya Line (number 11) which has been assigned shade of green similar to that of the Zamoskvoretskaya Line (number 2), Koltsevaya Line (number 5) and Butovskaya Line (number L1). Most lines run radially through the city, except the Koltsevaya Line (number 5), which is a 20-km-long ring connecting all the radial lines and a few smaller lines outside. On all lines, travellers can determine the direction of the train by the gender of the announcer: on the ring line, a male voice indicates clockwise travel, and a female voice counter-clockwise. On the radial lines, travellers heading toward the centre of Moscow will hear male-voiced announcements, and travellers heading away will hear female-voiced announcements. In addition, there is an abundance of signs showing all the stations that can be reached in a given direction.
The system was built almost entirely underground, although some lines (numbers 1, 2, and 4) cross the Moskva River, while line number 1 also crosses the Yauza River by bridge. Fewer than 10% of the stations are at or above the surface level. The surface sections of the Metro include the western part of Filyovskaya Line continuing as Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line between Kievskaya and Molodyozhnaya (eight surface stations), and the Butovskaya Light Metro Line (L1) with four elevated stations. The other surface stations are Vykhino, Izmaylovskaya and Vorobyovy Gory (the latter is built into a lower level of a bridge). There are several short surface stretches, including those between the stations Avtozavodskaya and Kolomenskaya (where a new station Technopark is going to be built), and between Tekstilshchiki and Volgogradsky Prospekt.
The Moscow Metro is open from about 05:30 until 01:00 (the precise opening time varies at different stations according to the arrival time of the first train, but all stations close for entrance simultaneously at 01:00). The system is then closed overnight (for a maintenance window) from 01:00 to about 05:30. During the morning and evening rush hours, trains run roughly every 90 seconds (minute and a half) on most lines. At other times during the day, they run about every two to three and a half minutes (120 to 210 seconds), and every six to ten minutes (360 to 600 seconds) late at night.
