No casualties

Yuri Luzhkov promised to preserve the historical bridge near the Belorussky railway station

It seems that the capital’s authorities are somewhat tired of numerous conflicts with Muscovites and, at every opportunity, they try to remind them of the good intentions of the developers. Last Saturday, during a traditional tour of city construction sites, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that the tunnel being built under Baltiyskaya Street would avoid the demolition of nearby houses and cutting down the park in the process of expanding traffic. “We are creating a powerful underground system for crossing Alabyan with Leningradka. The tunnel under Baltiyskaya Street will bypass residential buildings and will also allow preserving the square, which the residents asked for,” the mayor assured.

Let us recall that at the end of last year, road workers opened traffic through the updated tunnel connecting Leningradsky Prospekt with Leningradskoye Shosse: all supporting structures were replaced, walls were strengthened and traffic lanes were expanded by 2.5 meters in each direction. Immediately after the completion of the first stage of the reconstruction of Bolshaya Leningradka, construction was to begin at a depth of 14 meters of a tunnel connecting the Volokolamskoye Highway with Leningradsky Prospekt. This interchange will pass under pedestrian crossings and exits from the Sokol metro station. And only after this the road workers had to begin the third and final stage of the reconstruction of the route - the construction of a tunnel, conventionally called the Baltic. It will pass at a depth of 22 meters - already under the metro lines, Leningradsky and Volokolamsky tunnels. It was the construction of this in-depth facility that the mayor called “one of the problematic issues that the capital authorities will have to resolve in the near future.”

It appears that city builders are having to speed up road work, as Mr. Luzhkov has made it clear that most of the complex sections of the reconstruction should be completed by the end of summer 2008. However, it seems that we still cannot count on a prompt “resolution” of the transport situation at the intersection of Leningradskoye Shosse and Alabyan Street. “All options for the intersection of Leningradka and Alabyana Street have been resolved,” the mayor assured journalists last weekend, clarifying, however, that the construction of transport tunnels on Baltiyskaya and Alabyana streets with access to Akademicheskaya Street will, as planned, be completed no earlier than 2009 .

In the near future, as part of comprehensive work on Leningradka, road workers will begin reconstructing the road bridge across the railway in the area of ​​the Belorussky railway station. And according to the mayor’s assurances, this intervention should do without historical casualties. “The bridge is a historical monument, and our task, by expanding it into two lanes, is to very carefully collect all the historical elements that the protection of monuments will point out to us, and after reconstruction, return it to its original form,” Mr. Luzhkov said.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO