page_title: Moscow Monorail
section_title: Criticism
hierarchical_section_title: Moscow Monorail / Criticism
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Tatra KT3R 17-го маршрута около остановки «ВДНХ. Северный вход».
context_page_description: The Moscow Monorail is a 4.7-kilometre-long monorail line located in the North-Eastern Administrative Okrug of Moscow, Russia. It runs from the Timiryazevskaya via Fonvisinskaya and VDNHa metro stations to Sergeya Eisensteina street. The monorail line currently has six stations. Planning of the monorail in Moscow started in 1998. This was a unique project for Russian companies, which did not have prior experience in building monorails. 6,335,510,000 rubles were spent by the city of Moscow on the monorail construction.
  On 20 November 2004, the monorail opened in "excursion mode." On 10 January 2008, the monorail's operation mode was changed to "transportation mode" with more frequent train service. Ticket prices were reduced from 50 rubles to 19 rubles, which was the standard fare for Moscow's rapid transport at that time; as of 2012, ticket prices still matched the standard fare, but multi-ride passes could not be used between systems. In April 2012, one of Moscow's transport officials announced that he believed that the system should be closed down and dismantled in the future.
context_section_description: The criticism in the media is primarily about the system design (low speed and capacity), the route of the monorail and the idea of elevated platform transport (it is alleged that a tram can have the same capacity and speed).
  For example, the journalist Alexandr Lebedev noted:
  The amount of space per person on the monorail (either 200 people with 5 people per meter squared or 290 people at an average of about 8 people per meter squared) has been criticized as too little space for something deemed an "alternative to the light metro". For example, journalist Elena Komarova wrote in 2006 that:
  After the move from the excursion to working mode of the monorail, the running trains on the monorail should expand four fold, with trains going from 6 to 1 AM in intervals of five minutes carrying 3,500 people an hour... -  (For comparison: Moscow trams are designed for about 15-20 thousand people per hour, the "light" metro can take up to 22 thousand an hour, the normal one, up to 80 thousand.)... For now, the monorail isn't raising prices in the area of construction, nor the capitalization of the entire city. Right now it is only eating budget money. It is a tiring toy.
  However, the quote ignores the fact that the people per meter squared statistics listed above work out to about 50,000 people per day, which, taking into account the current capacity loads in the Moscow Metro, comes close to the hourly capacity loads of the Butovskaya Line. If the fact that the existing number of rolling stock held by the Monorail and dimensions of the rolling stock built for the first section of the depot is taken into account, such statistics do not match the potential of at least eight times, because (according to data on the company's website) trains can be made up of 10 cars (just like current Moscow Subway lines), and subway lines usually have 42-44 trains running per hour, which would satisfy the monorail's passenger traffic of 38 thousand people, per hour in both directions (or 23 thousand an hour under the existing six-car arrangement), which means the monorail can at least handle the same amount of traffic as the "Light Metro" and could possibly handle the daily volume of the Filyovskaya metro line.
  Supporters of the project state that the current above-ground Moscow transport lines, along with the highways, are in very poor condition, and the construction of another Metro line would be too expensive and would lower the land values in the area where construction would be taking place due to the amount of noise.
caption: Tram line 17 passes under the monorail track near the VDNKh Moscow Metro station
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX110 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:07:15 15:43:42", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5490", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:07:15 15:43:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:07:15 15:43:42", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3456", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3208", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3456000/229", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "216000/19", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}