The tunneling of the Moscow Metro Big Circle Line is completed

The Moscow Department of Transport reports that the tunneling of the Big Circle Line (BCL) of the Moscow Metro is completed. 

In less than 10 years, more than 140 km of tunnels have been constructed, including the use of giant tunneling shields with a diameter of 10 meters. Up to 13 tunnel-boring machines operated at the BCL at the same time.

The Big Circle Line is one of the key projects for Moscow. Earlier this month, the president of RussiaVladimir Putin (via the videoconference) and the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin have opened a 21 km section of the Big Circle Line for passengers. The full launch of the BCL is planned for late 2022 - early 2023, the circle line will have 31 stations. The BCL will be the longest metro circle line in the world. Its length will be about 70 kilometers, which is 3.5 times longer than the existing Line 5 (the Circle Line) and a quarter longer than the Beijing loop line (Line 10) - so far the global leader in terms of length.

“By the order of the Mayor of Moscow, we are constantly working to improve transport accessibility. The full launch of the BCL will simplify the movement of 3.3 million residents of 34 city districts. The existing sections of the line have already improved thetransport accessibility in 27 districts, where 2.7 million citizens live. Almost 500 thousand people use all the already opened 22 stations of the BCL every day, and this is taking into account the fact that we have opened 10 stations just three weeks ago. For comparison: the Circle Line (Line 5) is used by 1.2 million passengers daily, all 31 stations of the Moscow Central Circle – 530 thousand. In the future, when the BCL is completely closed, it will be used by about 2.25 million people per weekday”, — said Maksim Liksutov, the Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport.

The Moscow Transport Twitter account