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Moscow to Have Over 4mln Cars by 2010
Moscow will probably have more than 4 million cars by 2010. The current number slightly exceeds 3 million, sources with the Moscow government told RBC, and around 400,000 cars daily arrive in Moscow from the regions. In general, the car fleet of the city widens by 110,000 to 120,000 cars a year.
The car fleet of Moscow accounts for 10 percent of the overall fleet of Russia. “If the car fleet maintains its growth rates, the number of cars in Moscow will exceed 5 million by 2015,” sources with the Moscow City Hall said.
Such surge in the car number may bring to a halt nearly all traffic in Moscow in five years. So avoiding this scenario is the obvious concern of the city’s authorities. One of the most frequent solutions is constructing multilevel road interchanges. The additional proposal advocates reducing the number of traffic lights in the city.
In December of 2006, for instance, Moscow Duma preliminary sanctioned some German construction company to build doubling roads above the city’s highways. The second-level paths are expected to mirror the most important and busiest roads of Moscow. Designed mostly for cars, they will be running 12 meters above the existing roads or above the free area. Construction of the pilot section is slated to begin this year.
Predictably, this continuous growth in car number aggravates parking problems. As of December 2006, the shortage of parking lots was 2 million in the city. Moscow has roughly 1.2 million parking lots overall and authorities have vowed to come up with additional 150,000 a year.
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