How Vladimir Putin helped Sergei Sobyanin open the third diameter

President Vladimir Putin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin discussed new projects in the field of railway communication during the grand opening of the next – the third – high-speed diameter. As part of the fifth diameter project – MCD-5, which will connect the cities of Pushkino and Domodedovo, the city authorities will build two 12-kilometer tunnels under the center of Moscow and five new underground stations. The maximum waiting intervals for long-distance suburban trains (from Tula, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and other cities) are planned to be reduced from 45–180 minutes to 20–30 minutes. True, some trains will not reach Moscow – passengers will have to transfer to the MCD line. The President noted that the time has come to implement the long-standing project of high-speed highways, the first of which should be the Moscow-St. Petersburg line.

Mr. Sobyanin told Russian President Vladimir Putin about new transport projects immediately after the opening of traffic on the new branch of the Moscow High-Speed ​​Diameter (MTsD-3). Now they want electric trains between Zelenograd and Ramenskoye through the center of the capital with an interval of 5.5 minutes, in the near future (there is no exact date) they will open traffic along the MCD-4 from Aprelevka to Zheleznodorozhny.

MCD-5 (Pushkino-Domodedovo) Sergei Sobyanin called it one of the “promising” and technically complex projects, for which it will be necessary to build a tunnel under the city center. In December 2022, in an interview with Kommersant Deputy Mayor Maxim Liksutov spoke about the pre-design work, which was supposed to answer the question: is it possible to lay such a tunnel in principle? Judging by the statements of Sergei Sobyanin, the decision was made, the project was supported by Vladimir Putin. Two 12-kilometer tunnels will be built, follows from the words of the mayor, each with a diameter of 10 m, and not 6 m, as in the subway (the MCD train is wider than subway trains). MCD-5 will include 39 stations, including five new underground ones. The authorities have not yet announced the timing of the implementation and the cost of the project.

Another project announced by the mayor concerns the outlying suburbs and neighboring areas. Trains from Tula, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and other cities around the capital region follow to Moscow at large intervals – from 45 to 180 minutes, Sergei Sobyanin said: “This does not suit anyone.” The Moscow City Hall and Russian Railways propose to increase the number of trains, reducing the waiting time to 20-30 minutes. They will reach the terminal stations of the MCD, and there the passengers will transfer to the diameters. The press service of the Kommersant Department of Transport told that within the framework of the project, all existing suburban trains will remain in “full volume” – they will run along the same routes and to the same stations as now. But new, additional trains will not go to Moscow: they will only go between the MCD hubs and regional centers.

The timing of the project and its cost have not yet been named. “I heard about this idea back in the last decade,” says Kirill Yankov, head of the Passenger Union, member of the public council of the Ministry of Transport of Russia. from the dead end to the other side, landing), the lower the unit costs per kilometer of the way. “Artificial” transfers in Lobnya or Zelenograd may be inconvenient for passengers, Mr. Yankov fears. He admits that the authorities would like to leave “all obsolete trains outside the MCD”, since there are “not enough funds” to upgrade the trains of the entire Moscow junction. The head of the All-Russian Association of Passengers, Ilya Zotov, notes that the economics of the project require a more detailed assessment – for example, in terms of the production of trains and the necessary infrastructure changes for their smooth movement. However, Mr. Zotov believes that as a result of the launch of the project, the mobility of the population of the regions bordering Moscow will triple due to more convenient transport links.

As the third “promising” project, Sergei Sobyanin spoke about high-speed rail projects (HSR) to St. Petersburg (travel time should be reduced from 4 hours to 2 hours and 15 minutes), Kazan and Adler. Let us recall that HSR projects have been discussed for more than a year. The Moscow Mayor’s Office is preparing the infrastructure for the High-Speed ​​Line, Russian Railways is engaged in design and construction. Vladimir Putin proposed to build a high-speed line also to Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Kazan, Donetsk, Lugansk, as well as Minsk (promised to discuss the latest idea with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko). The HSR pilot project is the line Moscow—Petersburg. In July 2023, Russian Railways stated that the construction period might be pushed back from the originally planned 2025-2026 due to a lack of funding. Vladimir Putin, however, believes that “the time has come”: “The project of a high-speed railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg has been discussed by us for a long time. It seems to me that now we have really come to the possibility of its implementation. Let’s get started. We recently discussed this with Sergei Semenovich, with the chairman of the board, the head of Sberbank. Banks, of course, will be involved in this work, they see both economic and financial prospects for themselves. I’m sure we’ll succeed.”

Ivan Buranov