The Bolshaya Koltsevaya line () (English: Big Circle Line) (Line 11; Teal Line) is a

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT) or heavy rail, commonly referred to as metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport that is generally built in urban areas. A grade separation, grade separated rapid transit line below ground su ...

line of the

Moscow Metro The Moscow Metro) is a rapid transit system in the Moscow Oblast of Russia. It serves the capital city of Moscow and the neighbouring cities of Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, Krasnogorsk, Reutov, Lyubertsy, and Kotelniki. Opened in 1935 with one l ...

system in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is the third circle line on the system, running outside of the existing circle Koltsevaya line and interlocking with the

Moscow Central Circle The Moscow Central Circle or MCC (, МЦК), (Line 14) and marked in a strawberry red/white color is a orbital urban rail transit, urban/metropolitan rail line that encircles historical Moscow. The line is rebuilt from the Little Ring of the M ...

. The first section of the line opened on 26 February 2018, with the remaining stations opening on 1 March 2023. The line includes 29 stations, including three from the former

Kakhovskaya line The Kakhovskaya line (, ) (Line 11A, formerly Line 11) was an abolished line of the Moscow Metro. Although the line was formed in 1995, all of the stations date to 1969 when they opened as part of the Zamoskvoretskaya line. The Kakhovskaya line ...

, and is long, which makes it the longest metro circle line in the world, surpassing Line 10 of Beijing Subway by . In November 2017 the city estimated the total cost of the project at 501 billion rubles, up from earlier estimates of 378.9 billion rubles. Formerly known as the Third Interchange Contour, the city adopted "Bolshaya koltsevaya liniya" as the official name of the line after a vote via the "Active Citizen" web portal.

Name

The working name of the project since inception was the Third Interchange Contour; however, prior to the opening of the line, the city authorities consulted residents to help decide on the name. In an initial survey on the Active Citizen survey website in October 2017, only 34% of the city’s residents voted to keep the working name. Although retaining the working name was the most popular option, members of the city’s council on transportation infrastructure suggested another vote. Two reasons cited by transport expert Kirill Yankov were that all of the lines’ names to this point were in the feminine

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

and that all the other line names were generally understood from a point of view of geography. The city held another vote on its website to allow citizens to choose between the existing name or the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line (Large Circle Line). Of the alternate names suggested by voters in the first vote, Bolshaya Koltsevaya was the most popular, with 9,000 votes. In the second vote, Bolshaya Koltsevaya Line was selected with 53.3% of the votes versus 36.5% for the Third Interchange Contour.

Development

The original plans called for a line that is with 27 new stations. The entire project was supposed to be completed by 2020–2021. By 2018, the completion date had been postponed until 2023.

First sections

The five stations from

Petrovsky Park Petrovsky Park () is a station on the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line of the Moscow Metro. It served the eastern terminus of the line until 30 December 2018, when the extension of Bolshaya Koltsevaya to Savyolovskaya opened. It opened on 26 February ...

to Delovoy Tsentr opened on 26 February 2018.

Savyolovskaya Savyolovskaya may refer to: * Moscow Savyolovsky railway station Savyolovsky station (, ''Savyolovsky vokzal''), alternatively spelled ''Savyolovskiy'', ''Savelovsky'' or ''Savelovskiy'', is one of the ten main railway stations in the Maryina ...

was opened on 30 December 2018.

Further extension

The northeastern section was initially scheduled to be completed in 2018, but was delayed for two years until it was opened on 27 March 2020 and 31 December 2020. On 1 April 2021, the section between Khoroshyovskaya and Mnyovniki was opened. This section includes the part of the line from Elektrozavodskaya to Nizhegorodskaya. The existing, short, three-station

was incorporated into the line. Kakhovskaya was reopened on 7 December 2021 after reconstruction within the segment to Mnyovniki. The sections from Savyolovskaya to Elektrozavodskaya and from Kakhovskaya to Nizhegorodskaya opened on 1 March 2023.

Stations

Rolling stock

Subway car types used on the line over the years:

Maps

Moscow metro map sb.svg, schematic inc. MCC Moscow metro map geo en - inc third interchange contour.svg , true location, no MCC (outdated scheme)

References

External links

{{Moscow Metro Moscow Metro lines Railway loop lines