The first ever road to connect Russia’s west with the east will be built in 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.
“We plan to build about 6,000 kilometers of federal roads next year. The construction of the Chita-Khabarovsk road started in 1967, with approval of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee. That road, of 2,000 kilometers, will be ready next year. For the first time in the history of the Russian empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia we will have a road stretching out from the west to the east,” Ivanov said.
Seventeen bridges and one supplementary bridge across the Oka River in Murom will be commissioned this year, Ivanov said.
“The construction of the majority of these bridges started in the Soviet period. The projects were abandoned in the 1990s. Vladimir Putin made the political decision to finish the projects in 2004, and the funding began in 2005. These are huge bridges. The last of them will be commissioned in Ulyanovsk next week. That bridge, of 24 kilometers, had been under construction since 1987. There was a ten-year pause in the project,” Ivanov said.
He promised to build any new bridges in Russia within 18-24 months. “The rapid construction will reduce project costs. It is very unprofitable to drag out construction projects. We intend to commission about 6,000 meters of bridges on federal roads next year. The bridge to the Russky Island will be the longest cable stayed bridge in the world, and the Ulyanovsk bridge will be the longest in Europe. It is not that Russia wants to beat a record. It is just that this country is vast, and our rivers are wide,” he said.
The construction of two toll roads will begin next year, Ivanov said. “It is possible to collect money wherever traffic is very busy, so we will organize concessions and build toll bridges. The toll will be five or six times smaller than in Europe, about 5 rubles per kilometer [the current exchange rate is 28.85 rubles to the dollar],” Ivanov said.
News
