В прошлом году, готовясь к лекции, занимался историей...

Last year, while preparing for the lecture, I was studying the history of the metro in the city. It was also generally not fun. And it seems hopeless. Our city, with its own specific climate, with traffic jams, a large (comparatively) length, must have very good public transport. Comfortable, warm, fast, frequent. During the years of stagnation, which became an era of great construction for St. Petersburg, one big city planning mistake was made. This mistake fits into two words: "Sleeping Areas". There is nowhere to work and study in these areas. From them you need to leave for work and study in the center. More than a hundred thousand are leaving Krasnoselsky. And in the evening they go back. And there is no metro. Not a single station in an area with two hundred thousand inhabitants. And several bottlenecks through which everyone travels back and forth. The metro was catastrophically behind the pace of construction back in the 70s. True, there were objective reasons for that. Very complex geology, a deep river, under which you need to dig tunnels, quicksands. But are we the only city with a complex geology? You haven't been to Mexico City. There archeology is complicated - while the metro was being dug - they dug up a whole underground city of ancient people (did you mix anything up, colleagues?). I always envied Moscow with white envy - wherever you go in the center, there is a metro station, and preferably two. No, three! And not only in Krasnoselsky we don't have a metro. We don't have it in the center either. Due to the lack of stations in the city there are "black holes" - areas from where, if you get, figs will get out. And in the very center. Okhta, for example. And also our city government lives in such a hole. Every time I go to Smolny, everyone follows some partisan paths. Not to mention the outskirts. In general, the metro builders did not have time. And what now - well, it seems like they enter the station in a year or two. Take a closer look! All these stations were either almost completed in late Soviet times (Komendantsky), or they are being built along the existing line (Admiralteyskaya). Have you ever wondered why Parnas station is in an open field? Because it was made according to the old general plan. Or another strong move: we take a branch, cut it into two, complete one station, and announce that we have a new metro line. And we put escalators on it, which initially do not work. Our city needs a lot of new stations, branches, a ring .. Light metro. There were plans. Already swam. I'm talking about a monorail project from the Baltic Pearl. The project was stillborn and got up almost as soon as they started talking about it. Motorists swear at traffic jams. Let them try to get into a carriage on the Leninsky Prospect metro station at nine in the morning towards the center. Sad, and alas, hopeless. Our city will certainly have a good metro. But neither me nor you will have to live "in this wonderful (wonderful) time."