Local, foreign firms eager to fix the Metro

SPP
01/23/96

Local and foreign companies are lining up for the right to repair the St Petersburg Metro system.

Metrostroi company -- which built the system -- will submit a tender to replace the destroyed portion of the Kirovsko-Vyborgsky line. Metrostroi head Vadim Alexandrov said French companies had also expressed an interest.

Services between Ploshchad Lenina and Akademicheskaya stations were suspended indefinitely in mid-December when sand and water entering the tunnel caused it to subside. One week later a 500-meter (1,650 foot) section of the tunnel between Lesnaya and Ploshchad Muzhestva stations collapsed.

A state commission is due to meet in St Petersburg next month to investigate the causes of the disaster and apportion blame.