OREANDA-NEWS. The Big Circle Line (BCL) in the Moscow metro will be launched in 2022, a year ahead of schedule, writes RBC with reference to a representative of the capital's mayor's office. Ten new stations on the new ring will open in 2021.

Andrey Bochkarev, Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development Policy and Construction, called the opportunity to launch ten stations at once as an "unprecedented case". There will be 31 stations on the Big Ring in total. The line will connect all radial branches up to ten kilometers from the already existing "brown" ring.

The BCL will be 69 kilometers long. If the project goes according to plan, it will set the record for the longest metro ring line in the world. Now the championship belongs to Beijing - the length of the Second Ring Line of the metro of the Chinese capital is 57 kilometers.

New branches will also be attached to the Big Ring: Rublevo-Arkhangelskaya, Kommunarskaya and the line under construction to the Eastern and Western Biryulevo and Shcherbinka areas. From the BCL stations it will be possible to make 19 transfers to other metro lines, four transfers to the Moscow Central Circle (MCC), six transfers to the Moscow Central Diameters (MCD) and 11 transfers to the railway.

In September, Moscow Deputy Mayor for Transport Maxim Liksutov said that the launch of ten new stations on the Big Ring in 2020 will make the metro more accessible to residents of 11 districts of the capital, where 1.4 million people live. For 420 thousand people, the stations will appear within walking distance from their homes.