About the most expensive

What projects in St. Petersburg may suffer due to international sanctions and Crimean spending

In April, the government of St. Petersburg, as usual, will propose to the Legislative Assembly to approve adjustments to the city budget for 2014. In the previous 4-5 years, this adjustment did not change anything fundamental in the city’s “statement of income and expenses” - since the economic situation was more or less stable.

This time the situation is more complicated - for well-known foreign policy reasons. The need to maintain the “Crimean federal district” in combination with international sanctions can significantly affect the budgetary priorities of the federal level - and ultimately affect the regional ones.

To what extent can this affect St. Petersburg? The exact picture will not become clear until the government considers fiscal adjustment. But some predictions can be made now.

City budget revenues 2014 – 410 billion rubles. Of these, 28 billion are receipts from the federal budget. Generally speaking, not much: 7% of all income.

Most of the federal money is spent on transportation infrastructure. In particular, 11 billion - to increase the authorized capital of Western High-Speed ​​Diameter OJSC. Another 2 billion is for the construction of the metro line, which should pass by the new football stadium, and the Novokrestovskaya station (2.5 billion is planned for these purposes in the city budget for 2014).

If difficulties arise with federal money, they could lead to difficulties for these objects. True, there are already questions about them.

For example, WHSD – a toll highway – is being built mainly with budget money, although at one time we were promised a line of investors eager to invest their funds in the WHSD. But the metro station located near the new stadium will be of little use: after the matches, like Sportivnaya now, it will be closed to avoid crowding. So isn’t it an expensive pleasure to build a station mostly for the convenience of those who have built or are planning to build elite housing in the west of Krestovsky Island?

himself stadium Apparently, no sequesters will affect it - the 2018 World Cup project is intended to be the next calling card of the country after the Olympics in Sochi, and no money has been ordered to be spared on this. It’s just that all construction costs (which Novaya has talked about more than once) are borne by St. Petersburg. And not the federal budget and not Gazprom. Moreover, according to the author’s information, the design documentation for the two most complex elements of the stadium design – the retractable roof and the retractable field – is still not ready.

I would like to hope that the crisis will not affect the metro development work financed by the city: 9.4 billion rubles. in 2014 it is planned for Frunzensky radius metro from Mezhdunarodnaya to Yuzhnaya, 2.5 billion - for the construction of a metro line that will go from Spasskaya to Morsky Facade , 3.2 billion - for the construction of a second exit from Sportivnaya .

We note that there are also a lot of questions about the last object: at one time both residents and experts actively opposed it, assuring that it would be much more relevant to have a second exit at the Tuchkov Bridge not from the little-used “Sportivnaya”, but from “Vasileostrovskaya” .

In turn, with a high probability in the near future we will have to completely forget about such (today not even mentioned in the city budget) “ambitious projects” of the Valentina Matvienko era, such as Orlovsky tunnel .

The Novo-Admiralteyskaya crossing is a big question. Plans for the construction of a bridge on the 16th line of Vasilievsky Island were canceled by the court due to a violation of the General Plan of St. Petersburg. Sailors are against the appearance of a bridge on the 22nd line of Vasilievsky Island - they say that due to the bend of the river and the strong current, ships will not be able to pass past the bridge supports. The solution would be to build a tunnel - especially since the crossing would be around the clock - but this is quite expensive, and it is not a fact that the city will be able to afford it in the coming years. Although, without such a crossing, Vasilyevsky is increasingly turning into a trap for motorists: the existing Palace and Blagoveshchensky bridges are overloaded.

Finally, due to financial problems, the prospects for another major infrastructure project are completely unclear - bridge across Serny Island , from Vasilyevsky Island to the Petrograd Side. Everyone agrees that it is needed. It's only about money...

In general, we will wait until the end of April - when both estimates of the city’s own revenue receipts and the prospects for receiving federal money will become more clear. Then it will be possible to speak more definitely about how the crisis situation will affect our city.