by Yuri Popov (updated in October 2009)
After a decade of decline in 1990s, the situation with metro construction in Moscow has substantially improved in recent years. The city rather than the federal government is now paying for the majority of the construction, and funding is increasing year after year. Currently, metro construction budget has reached a billion dollars a year. The main diversion from the new metro construction - the obsession with monorails, "light metros", and "mini-metros" - is now a thing of the past, and all the construction funding is spent on regular heavy metro. The western extension of Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line (line 3) and the northern and the southern extensions of Liublinsko-Dmitrovskaya line (line 10) are the main priorities for the next few years. As of the time of this writing, the projected schedule of station openings is as follows:
December 2009 -- Line 3: stations "Miakinino", "Volokolamskaya", and "Mitino".
September 2010 -- Line 10: stations "Dostoyevskaya" and "Mar'ina Roscha".
2012 -- Line 10: stations "Borisovo", "Shipilovskaya", and "Ziablikovo" (transfer to line 2).
2012 -- Line 8: station "Novokosino".
2012 -- Line 3: station "Piatnitskaya" and a new yard.
2013-2015 -- Line 7: station "Zhulebino".
2013-2015 -- Line L1: stations "Lesoparkovaya" and "Bitsevskiy Park" (transfer to line 6).
2013-2015 -- Line 2: station "Brateyevo" and a new yard.
2013-2015 -- Line 2: station "Tekhnopark".
Later projects include (in no particular order):
- extension of line 10 further north from "Mar'ina Roscha"
- new line 12 southwest from "Park Pobedy"
- extension of line 8 further west from "Tret'yakovskaya"
- extension of line L1 further south from "Buninskaya Alleya"
All these segments are to be completed in the next 10-15 years, however, it is too early to quote any possible opening dates.
Maps of the existing metro and regional-rail networks in largest Russian cities can be found at http://www.metromaps.da.ru/.