By yellow squares

The traffic police will ensure priority for football fans on the day of the Champions League final

If St. Petersburg traffic inspectors yesterday agreed to limit traffic on a number of streets in order to give Zenit fans the opportunity to celebrate their team’s victory in the UEFA Cup on a grand scale, the Moscow traffic police department has already begun active preparations for the Champions League final. The match between Chelsea and Manchester United will take place on May 21 at the Luzhniki Stadium, and despite the fact that it is a working day, the capital’s traffic cops intend to restrict traffic on a number of streets in the evening in order to ensure priority for 40 thousand fans there. from the UK going to Moscow. In addition, by the end of this week, markings of the lanes on Moscow highways should be completed, along which buses will deliver British fans from airports to the stadium, so that drivers give way to them and generally stay away.

Yellow squares not described in any road GOST appeared on highways near Moscow leading from Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo last week. In recent days, markings have also appeared within the city, not only in the vicinity of the Luzhniki sports complex, but also on the Garden and Third Transport Rings, as well as a number of streets in the very center of the capital - for example, on Okhotny Ryad. The purpose of these mysterious signs became clear only after the road workers depicted a red pictogram of a cup in the center of the yellow squares. The State Unitary Enterprise Dorinvest, which is responsible for the maintenance of Moscow’s main highways, explained that with the help of such marks on the roads it was decided to mark “routes for transport with delegations and fans.”

So far, yellow squares, of course, do not cause concern to capital’s drivers. However, on Wednesday, as ITAR-TASS was told by the Moscow Department of Transport and Communications, the city traffic police, with its usual zeal, will ensure the unimpeded passage of buses with fans along the yellow-spotted lanes. It is assumed that columns of Mosgortrans express trains (and as the Minister of Sports and President of the Russian Football Union Vitaly Mutko assured, it is planned to use about 700 buses) will go outside the city along the Leningradskoye and Kievskoye highways and the highway connecting the capital with Domodedovo International Airport. Within the city, routes for fans are laid along Leninsky Prospekt and Vernadskogo Avenue, Mozhaiskoye Highway and Kutuzovsky Prospect. Naturally, sections of the Moscow Ring Road connecting these city highways with routes to airports will also operate in a “special regime”. Priority traffic will be given to special buses on the embankments leading to Luzhniki and Khamovnichesky Val. The movement of urban ground transport, on the contrary, will be limited - some bus and trolleybus routes that have a final stop at Luzhniki, on the evening of May 21, will only go to the 10th Anniversary of October Street.

Travel through some streets of the capital on the day of the Champions League final will be completely closed. It is expected that the closure will affect Frunzenskaya, Novodevichy, Rostov and Savvinskaya embankments, Luzhnetsky and Novodevichy passages. Representatives of the city administration have already appealed to drivers with an urgent request to respect football fans on Wednesday and refrain from traveling both along routes for buses with fans and in the vicinity of the Luzhniki sports complex. Moreover, this request will be supported by temporary prohibitory signs installed in full compliance with the Traffic Rules, traffic police pickets and police patrols. As Valery Gribakin, head of the public relations department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, said yesterday, 6 thousand police officers and military personnel will be mobilized to ensure security at the match in the city. “This is 15-20% more compared to regular matches, including international ones,” Mr. Gribakin clarified.

The metro has been proposed as the only alternative to private cars. On the day of the final, for the right to host which the city authorities fought so hard, the capital's subway will work even longer than on New Year's Day - until 4 o'clock in the morning.

Fedor SEREBRYANSKY