To calm the snowstorm: how Moscow coped with traffic jams caused by snowfall
On the second day of large—scale snowfall, January 28— traffic in Moscow stopped. By evening, maximum ten—point traffic jams were recorded throughout the city. And all day, just like the day before, the Moscow authorities urged Muscovites not to get behind the wheel, but to use the subway. At the same time, public transport — buses and trams — arrived with significant delays, and not everyone could enter it. And on the MKAD, especially at transport interchanges, the trucks that were skidding formed kilometer-long traffic jams. How the capital coped with the transport collapse is described in the Izvestia article.
There is no exit
Public transport has been running with delays since the evening of January 27. Ekaterina, who lives in the east of the capital, managed to leave Novokosino metro station only after waiting at the bus stop for 40 minutes.
— There are four electric bus routes running from the metro towards my house. It usually takes 5-7 minutes to leave in the evening. Sometimes you have to wait a little longer. I stood at the bus stop for 40 minutes — not a single electric bus arrived. And the one that arrived had to be stormed — it was good that the doors were right in front of me. But not everyone was so lucky, many simply could not get into the salon," she told Izvestia.
And on Wednesday morning, residents of Balashikha working in Moscow could not get to the capital via Shchelkovsky highway for more than an hour. More and more people gathered at the bus stops to get on the bus.
— I drove home for an hour and a half last night and got into the same traffic jam this morning. It's cold standing outside, and as soon as you manage to get into transport, you suffer from terrible stuffiness," a resident of the Moscow region complained to Izvestia.
In the north of the capital, the waiting time for public transport reached half an hour, with a regular schedule of 3-5 minutes. Trams and buses were clogged up at the first stops, and closer to the middle of the route they could no longer accommodate all those waiting.
By the evening of January 28, the subway was already overcrowded: there was not enough space on the platforms, passengers were waiting for trains right on the stairs.
Metro employees had to clear snow from the tracks to the electric depot and rails in open areas around the clock, the Deptrans reported.
"Special machines equipped with powerful brushes and capable of releasing compressed air sweep away snow on tracks, switches and from under the contact rail. Such equipment can clear paths from rubble up to 0.65 m high," the ministry said.
They noted that more than 600 employees were involved in the fight against snow in 23 electric depots of the capital on Wednesday.
Almost one hundred units of snow removal equipment, as well as more than 4 thousand people, were brought out on the Moscow Railway for snow removal. In total, over the past day, more than 100 thousand cubic meters of snowdrifts were removed from the MZhD landfill, the ministry said.
On the evening of January 28, there were cases when people preferred to leave public transport and walk home along the MKAD, as evidenced by eyewitness videos.
On Tuesday night alone, 8 mm of precipitation fell.
— The weather has created all the conditions for the previous record for the number of precipitation to be blocked, — said Tatiana Pozdnyakova, a leading specialist at the Meteonosti agency.
According to her, the heaviest snowfalls in Moscow and the Moscow region have already ended — their intensity is decreasing.
But the Department of Transport warned that a road collapse in the city center is predicted on January 29 due to weather conditions and possible local restrictions.
More than 1 million cubic meters of snow were removed on the entire Russian railway network from January 26 to January 27, Russian Railways reported. The ministry noted that most snowdrifts were observed in the regions located within the borders of the Moscow, West Siberian, Sverdlovsk, and Northern Railways. Russian Railways stressed that more than 18,000 railway workers went out to fight snow on peak days.
The press service of Avtodor informed Izvestia that over 15 thousand tons of deicing materials had been consumed in the last 24 hours. In addition, to increase the safety and comfort of drivers, 164 crews of emergency commissioners patrol the streets around the clock.
It got heavy
The situation on the MKAD, in the exit areas, was especially acute from night and throughout the day: there were multi-kilometer queues of trucks skidding. On the afternoon of January 28, in the areas of the Volokolamsk highway, highway Enthusiasts, Businovskaya overpass, travel time increased by at least an hour.
The problem with trucks that block the passage is observed every winter, recalls Vladimir Matyagin, president of the National Association of Freight Motor Transport "Gruzavtotrans".
— As soon as we have snow, the MKAD immediately stops. The problem can be overcome if the authorities begin to block traffic in advance for a couple of hours and notify drivers in a timely manner, " he told Izvestia.
For heavy trucks, it is necessary to organize parking along the routes, a representative of the trucking industry believes.
— You can work out a specific scheme to make it convenient for everyone. It is better to block traffic for drivers in order to clear the road well than for people to stand in traffic jams for several hours," said Vladimir Matyagin.
Taras Koval, Vice—President of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists, added that one of the reasons for the trucks being stalled is their improper loading. This is especially true for semi-trailers (trucks).
The expert called the lack of mandatory requirements for winter tires on trucks a serious problem — the legislation prescribes seasonal "re-fitting" only for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. In addition, there is no requirement for snow chains on heavy trucks, the expert emphasized.
"Few truckers have such chains in their cars, and even fewer drivers know how to properly put them on their wheels," Taras Koval said. — Drivers often try to skip difficult sections without chains, hoping for a chance. As a result, first one truck gets up on a slippery slope, then in the next lane, or even on the oncoming lane, the second one freezes, then the third, the fourth... As a result, the highway is blocked in both directions.
A video has spread on the Internet of how a policeman in Reutov pushed a huge truck into a hill with his hands: the truck stalled on the rise due to ice. As noted by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Irina Volk, the feat of a policeman is not connected with physical superpowers, but with wit.
"He held the truck so that the studded wheels could remove the layer of ice and reach the asphalt. As we can see, this tactic worked," Irina Volk wrote on her Telegram channel.
But studded tires on trucks are exotic, they are rarely used by cranes and only in the northern regions, and, as a rule, by drivers themselves or car companies, Taras Koval noted. They are effective only on clear ice, and just good winter tires for trucks work much better in snow conditions, he stressed.
Oleg Rastegaev, an expert at the Avtorevue newspaper, also noted that truck tire plucking is mainly used "in the north" and in quarries.
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