Translated material
Collateral collapse
Immediately after the explosions, Moscow was paralyzed by traffic jams
One of the consequences of yesterday’s terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro was a transport collapse “on the surface.” In the first hours after the explosions at Lubyanka and Park Kultury, the main transport routes of the capital were virtually paralyzed. The explosions in the metro occurred at the beginning of rush hour, when both the subway and city highways are especially congested. After train traffic on the Sokolnicheskaya metro line was stopped, and the police blocked the streets in the area of the Lubyanka and Park Kultury metro stations, the city center came to a standstill. Moreover, it was not always clear how justified this or that large-scale blocking was - if the restrictions on Rublevskoye Highway and Kutuzovsky Prospekt could be in some way connected with trips of officials to report to the president, then why they blocked, say, Varshavskoye Highway, one can only guess .Until 10.30, traffic on the Garden Ring in both directions near Zubovsky Boulevard was stopped, and the Crimean Bridge was also closed. In the area of Lubyanka and Park of Culture, tow trucks removed cars that were interfering with the work of the police and Emergency Situations Ministry employees. The Moscow government appealed to city residents to refrain from traveling to the center.
Even after traffic was reopened, cars on Komsomolsky Avenue and Vernadsky Avenue were still stuck in traffic jams. According to eyewitnesses, along Komsomolsky Prospekt hundreds of people stood on the roadway, trying to get into the city center. At 11.30, the Yandex traffic jams analytical service reported traffic jams on the Garden Ring - from Leninsky Prospekt to Novy Arbat. The same situation persisted for a long time on the Third Transport Ring - on the inner side of the route from Andropov Avenue to Rusakovskaya Street, and on the outer side from Bakuninskaya Street to Varshavskoye Shosse. Traffic was paralyzed both within the Garden Ring - on Tverskoy Boulevard and Ostozhenka, and on highways far from the center - on Shchelkovskoye Highway, cars were parked starting from the Moscow Ring Road.
Around noon, train traffic was partially restored on the red Sokolnicheskaya metro line, from Yugo-Zapadnaya to Sportivnaya and from Komsomolskaya to Ulitsa Podbelskogo. For example, from Komsomolskaya, which was closed to the entrance, passengers walked to the next station, Krasnoselskaya, to take the train towards Sokolniki, and from Sportivnaya to University, people traveled along the metro bridge on Vorobyovy Gory. Metro employees urged citizens to use ground transport. For this purpose, 130 buses were used, which, duplicating closed stations, were supposed to transport passengers free of charge from the area of three stations to Luzhniki. However, according to eyewitnesses, the buses had to wait a long time - they did not appear immediately.
Public transport was clearly not enough to transport everyone, and traffic jams in the center clearly did not help solve the problem. Taxi owners did not fail to take advantage of the difficulties faced by Muscovites, increasing their prices by an average of ten times. According to ITAR-TASS correspondents, private cab drivers demanded up to 3 thousand rubles for travel from Komsomolskaya Square to the Park Kultury metro station. (at the usual rate 300-400 rubles). “They demanded 3 thousand for any trip, 100 dollars for a couple of metro stations. At a difficult moment for residents, taxi drivers “showed special consciousness,” noted one of the Moscow bloggers who encountered “intrusive service.”
Since there were no levers of influence on private owners who felt like monopolists, secular and spiritual authorities turned to them with admonitions. “This money will not be of any use to you,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' said yesterday. - Bring them back - do good deeds on them. Any desire to make money from the grief of another turns into grief.” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was in Krasnoyarsk at the time, made a similar request to private cab drivers, respectfully calling them “representatives of small and medium-sized businesses working in transport.” “I urge anyone not to take advantage of the situation, not to inflate prices, not to create additional difficulties, but, on the contrary, to show solidarity with those people who find themselves in a difficult situation,” said the head of government.
After four o'clock in the afternoon, traffic on the Sokolnicheskaya metro line began to recover. At 16.12 the stations “Park Kultury – Radialnaya” and “Frunzenskaya” were opened for passengers to enter, at 16.39 traffic was restored on the section from “Park Kultury” to “Komsomolskaya”, and at 17.50 the press service of the Moscow Metro reported that the station Lubyanka, which trains passed through without stopping, reopened to passengers.
By this time, according to the Yandex traffic jam service, traffic in Moscow had returned to normal. Moreover, during the day, the indicators of this service showed an unprecedentedly low level of motorist activity for a working day.