Extra-urgent bridge

Repair of the overpass at the 24th kilometer of Leningradskoe Highway is officially completed

The capital's authorities yesterday officially reported on the completion of repair work on the overpass over the Oktyabrskaya Railway at the 24th km of Leningradskoe Highway. The night before, workers lifted the lane restriction, and on Monday, cars legally occupied all three lanes on the bridge in each direction. The opening of the overpass did not radically affect the situation with traffic jams, but it will now be difficult to blame officials for the fact that it is the actions of the authorities that are aggravating the transport situation on the highway leading to the northern capital and, moreover, located near one of the largest airports in Moscow.

Let us recall that the repairs, which began after a short-term information preparation at the end of June, caused a real transport collapse at the northern and northwestern entrances to the capital for several days. The traffic narrowed to two lanes led to the fact that cars were jammed not only on Leningradskoye, but also on Dmitrovskoye, Pyatnitskoye and Novorizhskoye highways. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally had to act as a traffic controller - the head of government demanded that the capital's transport workers, who are responsible for this section of the highway passing through the Moscow region, normalize the situation. As a result, the closure of the bridge over the railway was reduced to the minimum possible, opening two lanes in each direction for traffic.

Officials from the Moscow Department of Housing, Communal Services and Public Improvement argued that the bridge over the railway tracks, which also carry the Sapsan high-speed trains, needs urgent repairs and strengthening. It was previously assumed that the work would last until November. However, the repairmen, who came to the attention of not only the prime minister, but also the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Prosecutor General's Office, managed to speed up and reduce the reconstruction period by more than two weeks, while completing quite complex engineering tasks to strengthen the supports and spans of the existing overpass, and update the roadway.

Yesterday at noon the overpass was officially opened, and now, as noted by the Department of Housing, Communal Services and Public Improvement, the capacity of the Oktyabrsky overpass has returned to its design level. But traffic jams at the entrance to Moscow along the Leningradskoe Highway persist, including because the bridge across the Moscow Canal, already within the capital’s borders, cannot cope with the flow of cars. As the acting head of the municipal services complex, Pyotr Biryukov, assured yesterday, construction work there will continue during the first half of 2011. After the construction of the new overpass, the entrance to the capital will be expanded.

Meanwhile, the completion of the scandalous renovation, as well as the change in city leadership, does not at all guarantee that the mayor’s office will withdraw previously filed claims from those who consider themselves victims of the transport collapse at the end of June. Let us recall that at the end of August Aeroflot filed a claim with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the capital government for 112,299,120 rubles. Lawyers do not rule out the possibility of filing new claims, because the prosecutor’s office will involuntarily take the side of the plaintiffs, which in early August, having studied the situation on Leningradskoye Shosse, came to the conclusion that “contrary to the requirements of the legislation on highways, with temporary restrictions on traffic by city government authorities Moscow violated the procedure for making such decisions.”

Fedor SEREBRYANSKY