Rolled in asphalt: Russia's highway construction plan has been exceeded
The plan for the construction and reconstruction of highways included in the national project "Safe Quality Roads" has been exceeded. Financing of the road sector for the next five years will be increased: the government has allocated an additional 46 billion rubles for highway construction. Izvestia" found out what these funds will be used for and in what direction the road sector will develop in the coming years.
Kilometers of highways
Since 2018, almost 1 billion square meters of asphalt concrete pavement have been laid in the regions within the framework of the national project "Safe Quality Roads" (SQR), of which 140 million square meters appeared this year. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin at an operational meeting. The key indicators of the national project BKD have been overfulfilled, he emphasized.
"With the planned indicator of 50% of regional roads in the standard we have fulfilled 54.8%. For these 4.8% - an additional 25 thousand kilometers of roads have been repaired," - said Deputy Prime Minister.
He said that the road network of 105 largest urban agglomerations, which is about 98 thousand kilometers of roads, has been brought to the normative condition. Marat Khusnullin stressed that despite the increase in the level of motorization by 9% and traffic intensity on federal highways by 53% since 2018, the accident rate and death rate on the roads have decreased by 20%.
"This is a very challenging indicator, but we were able to fulfill it together with the regions and the Interior Ministry," the deputy prime minister said.
In the first 11 months of this year, according to the operational data of the State Automobile Inspectorate, there were just over 11 thousand accidents on federal highways, which is 8.5% lower than the figures for the same period of 2023. In these auto accidents, almost 3.2 thousand people were killed (down 8%) and more than 15.8 thousand (-10%) were injured.
New facilities
Several dozen new and reconstructed highways appeared in Russia in the outgoing year. In mid-July, the M-11 "Neva" highway opened the traffic bypassing Tver, which saved motorists traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg and back from having to take the old road in the Tver region. Also in summer, traffic began to move along the reconstructed road sections in the Kursk and Volgograd Regions. The Kemerovo bypass, modernized sections of the M-5 "Ural" federal road in the Penza Oblast and the M-7 "Volga" federal road in the Perm Krai were completed in the autumn.
Tver Northern Bypass Bridge on the 155th km of the M-11 "Neva" highway
Several major road facilities were put into operation at the end of December. In particular, the bypass of the village of Malye Vyazemy appeared on the Central Ring Road, which relieved this highway from multi-kilometer traffic jams in front of the railway crossing, and traffic was opened on the Mytishchi Chord, which connected the Dmitrov and Yaroslavl highways in the Moscow region. In Krasnodar Krai, an expressway connecting the M-4 "Don" highway with the Crimean Bridge was opened; in Chechnya, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Volgograd Oblast, bypasses of Gudermes, Kansk and Volgograd were commissioned. In Chuvashia, traffic on the M-7 "Volga" highway opened on a new bridge over the Sura River, and in the Leningrad Region the reconstruction of a section of the A-181 "Scandinavia" highway was completed.
Last week the government allocated an additional 46 billion rubles for the road sector, which will make it possible to put in order about 418 kilometers of highways. These funds will be used to overhaul the bridge across the Volga River in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Region, as well as to build roads in Tatarstan and create bypasses of settlements in Bashkiria. In addition, part of the additional funding will be allocated for the construction of a highway bridge across the Ob River near Surgut.
As the head of the government Mikhail Mishustin stated at the meeting with deputy prime ministers, the extended five-year plan of road activities includes the creation and reconstruction of a number of new infrastructure facilities.
Ob River
- This is a bypass of Mariupol, a bridge over the Tumannaya River and the state border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as well as the repair of road sections in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, - said the Russian Prime Minister
According to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, now the actualization of the plan of road activity until 2030 is being completed. At the same time, approaches to construction of highways and development of road facilities will be preserved in the new national project "Infrastructure for Life", he emphasized.
To keep what has been started
According to Ilya Zotov, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, one of the main tasks of the new national project is to maintain the high rate of construction of new highways and reconstruction of existing ones, gained by road builders in previous years.
- This will allow to ensure stable development of the highway network in our country and to achieve the reduction of accidents and deaths on them to the indicators set by the President of Russia: one and a half times by 2030 and two times by 2035," he told Izvestia.
According to him, the most important infrastructure projects in the road sector that need to be completed in the near future are the extension of the M-12 Vostok highway to Yekaterinburg and then to Tyumen, as well as the construction of a new highway from Dzhubga to Sochi. He also considers it necessary to pay special attention to the development of roads in the North and the Far East.
- The emergence of roads in these regions will make them more accessible to residents of the rest of Russia and will improve the quality of life of citizens living in them," Ilya Zotov believes.
At the same time, emphasizes the Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Transport, other subjects of the Federation should not be neglected by road builders either. The development of highways should be comprehensive, in all regions of the country, he notes.
Valery Soldunov, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the All-Russian Society of Motorists, believes that without comprehensive development of the road sector, taking into account regional peculiarities, the effect of building new highways will be small.
- What is the point of building a new highway or widening an existing one in one region if it will bump into an old narrow road on the border with a neighboring region? Obviously, this will not increase the capacity of the highway and will not make traveling along it more convenient and safe," he said in a conversation with Izvestia.
In addition to maintaining the pace of road construction, the new national project should ensure coordination and interaction of federal and regional authorities in the development of the road sector, says Valery Soldunov. According to him, the current level of their interaction ensures active development of both federal and regional road networks. It should be tried to maintain and increase in the coming years, the expert believes.
