Smolny Discusses “Ground Metro” with Bamtonnelstroy-Most

At a city government meeting on July 21, officials raised the issue of building a ground metro in St. Petersburg. A working group has been formed to develop the project, with Bamtonnelstroy-Most (BTM-Most) among its participants. The first results are expected by October.

The ground metro idea has been discussed in the city for several years. Its implementation, however, requires freeing up inner-city railway tracks, for which a freight bypass around St. Petersburg must be built.

Denis Minkin, chairman of the transport committee, noted that building the ground metro is a very costly project. In his words, the costs are comparable to the construction of the Moscow–St. Petersburg high-speed rail line (HSR). The approved cost of the HSR exceeds 2 trillion rubles (more than $20 billion at current rates).

Bamtonnelstroy-Most, owned by Ruslan Baysarov, is already the general contractor for the city sections of the Latitudinal High-Speed Highway, excluding the section with the bridge over the Neva. In addition, it is designing and building the Krasnoselskoye depot for the brown metro line. It was previously expected that the same company would become the contractor for the southern metro routes to Pulkovo Airport and Kudrovo.