Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attends opening ceremony for new MKAD exit to M1 Belarus Motorway and holds a meeting on the implementation of the Central Ring Road construction project.
Touring the new junction connecting the M1 Belarus motorway and the Moscow Ring Road
Meeting on Central Ring Road construction
Toll Collection Area No 1
Visiting a new exit from the M1 Belarus federal route onto the Moscow Ring Road
Visiting Toll Collection Area No 1
Visiting Toll Collection Area No 1
Visiting the traffic management centre
Opening ceremony for the new exit from the M1 Belarus federal route onto the Moscow Ring Road
Meeting with residents of the Nemchinovka district
Toll Collection Area No 1
The new road, built in the Moscow Region’s Odintsovo District, will link the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD) with the M1 Motorway 33 km from the city centre, bypassing the town of Odintsovo. The Prime Minister examined the toll collection area for the new road and drove several kilometres along it.
He then observed the operation of the traffic dispatch office, which manages traffic on the new road and receives video footage from the cameras installed along the road.
The new exit will open in pilot mode on 25 December. Toll collection will begin in late January or early February.
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Remarks by Dmitry Medvedev on the opening ceremony:
Good afternoon, friends. The weather could have been better, but this occasion is worth it. This is perhaps one of the first examples for the Moscow Region of a public-private partnership yielding concrete results in road construction. We all came here today to inaugurate a new road link, which has been constructed under a novel principle, a concession agreement. This road is also expected to address a number of complex issues that the Moscow Region is currently facing.
Dmitry Medvedev: “We all understand that many people and goods transit through this region as they move around the European part of Russia. For this reason, by streamlining operation of the M1 federal route, this new road link will help those who are seeking to bypass Moscow in order to get to the desired destination faster.”
At the end of the day, this road will benefit not only Moscow and the Moscow Region. We all understand that many people and goods transit through this region as they move around the European part of Russia. For this reason, by streamlining operation of the M1 federal route, this new road link will help those who are seeking to bypass Moscow in order to get to the desired destination faster.
Sure enough, it remains to be seen how this road will operate. I’m confident that service quality will be high. I hope that toll rates will be moderate for the residents of Moscow, the Moscow Region and all citizens of Russia, and will generate revenues for those who participated in its construction – I am referring to the concession holder – while providing, as I’ve already said, road users all of the advantages of using an additional road link.
According to experts, the number of vehicles on this road is expected to average 50,000, which means that some 50,000 vehicles will use this road every day. This is a substantial number, and I hope that it will benefit Moscow, the Moscow Region and the country as a whole.
I would like to thank all of those who participated in construction, all workers, engineers, designers, and all of those who financed the project and its shareholders. Best of luck to you!
Let’s hit the road! Wish you high spirits! We’ve got every right to congratulate one another on this landmark event. Thank you.
Opening remarks by Dmitry Medvedev during the meeting on Central Ring Road construction:
Colleagues, welcome everyone whom I did not see during the opening of the new northern section of the road bypassing the town of Odintsovo. The project was officially called the “New Junction Connecting the Moscow Ring Road and the Federal M1 Belarus Moscow-Minsk Motorway”. Of course, we see this junction not only as a project for Moscow and the Moscow Region. It will go beyond that and increase the capacity of the European transport corridor that connects Berlin, Minsk, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod.
This project is based on a public-private partnership, which is a new development for us in and of itself. Today, we will focus on the construction of the Central Ring Road in general. It will be 529 km long. The Central Ring Road is a major project that will help to resolve many traffic problems in Moscow and the Moscow Region – a vast metro area that is home to over 20 million people. However, it will also help us to debottleneck the North-South and East-West international transport corridors.
Dmitry Medvedev: “New roads invariably provide a boost to the development of neighbouring areas. The Moscow and the Moscow Region authorities will draft plans for developing areas adjacent to the Central Ring Road. Of course, the road must be equipped with all of the necessary amenities, including hotels, logistics centres, restaurants and all other pertinent infrastructure facilities.”
The new toll road will run parallel to the Moscow Ring Road and drastically improve traffic on it, which, together with the larger and smaller concrete roads, will remain a free alternative route. This is a game-changing, albeit a temporary, solution because nothing lasts forever.
New roads invariably provide a boost to the development of neighbouring areas. The Moscow and the Moscow Region authorities will draft plans for developing areas adjacent to the Central Ring Road. Of course, the road must be equipped with all of the necessary amenities, including hotels, logistics centres, restaurants and all other pertinent infrastructure facilities. In this regard, we rely on the initiative of local entrepreneurs. I hope that our colleagues will cover this issue in their remarks and share with us their ideas about ways to implement these projects.
The total cost of the project runs into nearly 300 billion roubles. That’s a lot of money. I will not state the obvious, but all of this should be put to good use. The project cost may well be revised downwards, since the Government has decided on holding a price and a technical audit covering all of the start-up facilities.
Please also note the auction access arrangements that will be overseen by the antimonopoly service. I hope that the upcoming biddings will result in experienced and reliable Russian and foreign contractors working on the Central Ring Road.
The Government will loan out 150 billion roubles from the NWF to this project. The projected return on investment is about 6%. There will also be federal budget subsidies and debt financing. Funds must be disbursed gradually. It’s bad for the money to lie around in treasury accounts. Excessive advance payments are always a bad decision.
Private investors will invest about 71 billion roubles. New legal and institutional mechanisms will come into play to get this job done. In addition to concessions that have finally started working for us, we plan to use long-term investment agreements. Just like the road that we opened today, the entire work cycle should be performed by one contractor for an extended period of time. I’m talking decades.
This road must be completed in 2018. Let’s discuss the current state of affairs.
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