The Moscow Metro will open 63 new stations and add 142 kilometers of track by 2021, Moscow’s urban development and planning division has announced.
The city’s deputy mayor in charge of city planning and construction, Marat Khusnullin, made the announcement on Thursday at the Moscow Urban Forum, adding that the plans would see the metro increase by 142 kilometers, or 150 percent.
“At the same time, the number of people who don’t have a metro station within walking distance will be cut by half,” Khusnullin said.
Much of the new track will be constructed as part of the metro’s most ambitious project, the Third Interchange Contour (TIC). The TIC will have 68 kilometers of track lines and 31 stations that will connect the radial lines of the Moscow Metro.
The first five stations of this line are scheduled to open in 2017, with the last stations due to open in 2019.
When completed, the TIC could become the world’s largest circular metro line, Khusnullin said.
TIC construction is expected to cost 380 billion rubles ($6 billion), according to the report.
The Moscow Metro is one of the busiest in the world with 9 million people using it daily.
