A NEW SOCIAL TEST IN MOSCOW

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 25

A NEW SOCIAL TEST IN MOSCOW

There is only one subject of conversation in Moscow these days—the new subway. Young people and old are trying to wangle passes for the free rides which are preceding the opening of the route to regular commercial traffic. Anyone who has not had a ride is just socially "out," writes Harold Denny in the "New York Times."

I The completion of the subway and the unveiling of its really beautiful stations have evoked a wave of local pride which could hardly be matched even in the most ebullient American town. And the Muscovites can be pardoned for pointing out some comparisons between their subway and those of Western metropolises.

The 7J-mile first section, running through the heart of the city, close by the Kremlin wall, has been built more rapidly than any other, although Moscow's subsoil of soft mud, quicksand, and rock is the most difficult of all for tunnelling. Underground ■ rivers and even sixteenth century waterworks complicated the task. Actual construction began in 1933. New York's 13-mile Eighth Avenue line took seven years to build.

The stations—contrasting brilliantly in their architectural beauty with the dingy holes of our old subways—have other distinctions, too. The platforms are the widest in the world—four metres for side platforms, compared with three and a half metres in New York. The Okhotni Ryad station, in the heart of Moscow, corresponding to

'New York's Times Square, is the largest underground structure in the world. It is 170 metres long, 34 metres wide, and 13 metres high. Forced ventilation is used throughout the system.

Moscow has named her subway the Metro, like that of Paris, and the system itself resembles Paris's more than New York's. Moscow is roughly circular in shape, and eventually will be served by a spiderweb network of lines as in Paris.

Trains run at a very leisurely pace —17 miles an hour —compared with cannonball speed in New York, and there are no express trains. But that is twice as fact as Moscow's horribly overcrowded street cars run.

Coin turnstiles like those used in New York are being manufactured, but pending their completion 10,000,000 tickets have been printed, which are cxi pected to last ten days. The- fare probably will be 25 kopecks, regardless of length of ride. The Moscow street car1 fare is 10 to .20 kopecks, depending on the distance travelled.

Riding in the subway with these thrilled Muscovites gives ground for the belief that they will readily master this, to them, strange form of transportation. They are as accomplished strap-hangers as the most adept New Yorkers, except that in the Moscow subway too there are nickel-plated bar? to hang on to.1 The stations are abundantly manned by guards in trim blue uniforms, and they are infinitely more polite than the men who jam New Yorkers into rush-hour trains.