Capital Underworld: Life on the Edge

The emergency situation in the Moscow metro shows once again one simple thing: everything in the city is working to the limit. At the limit of throughput, when one failure can immediately lead to collapse. One or two minor accidents on the Moscow Ring Road lead to the ring becoming completely stuck. Gets up for the clock. Closing roads for the sake of another official - the road will not move soon. A fire in the metro - and in a few minutes thousands of passengers accumulate at the station, who cannot get out so easily and so quickly from the capital's underworld. It's a miracle that no one was pushed onto the tracks. A few more minutes - and there would have been terrible casualties. Casualties that always happen during panic and stampede.

And, I repeat, this is not a specific emergency, not this specific situation. We live on the edge of carrying capacity. And the metro is no exception, but on the contrary, the most striking manifestation of this problem.

For example, I have been using the Serpukhovskaya station since its opening in the 80s. How many of you have tried to make the transition to the roundabout there during rush hour? In the 90s, they blocked one of the arches with turnstiles - what is it called, to regulate passenger flow? Then they blocked the second arch. And a couple of years ago they blocked the third and fourth at once. As a result, out of eight arches you can go through four. Passengers in the first three carriages walk for a long time along the platform, balancing on the edge of the platform in order to get around these ceilings. What will we do next? What will we cover next? A station at all?

I simply cannot help but quote the most popular joke of the day: “The metro is already electing a new mayor. The smoke is still black.”

At the same time, the authorities did not even begin to do PR for themselves, taking advantage of the situation, although usually this can be done easily, armed with the right presentation on TV channels. Apparently everyone was confused. But an emergency does not happen every day, but a situation close to an emergency happens every day. But everyone has become accustomed to this turn of events. But in vain. Listeners wrote to us on the air: “As a metro construction engineer, I can responsibly declare that the Red Line has at most 10 years left. The condition of the articulation of the tunnel rings is in a terrible state.” Library named after. Lenina" is not flooded at all, only thanks to the pumps - small streams are always flowing along the walls. Regarding the new stations, the situation is no better. How this has not yet begun to collapse is not clear."

And thank God that this time there were no casualties.