Officials discuss the deteriorating condition of the federal road network as part of Transport Week

Assistant to the head of state Igor Levitin yesterday noted the deterioration of the state of the federal road network over the past three years, proposing to discuss this issue “separately in the government.” This statement was made during the discussion “Russia 2035: towards a new transport economy” as part of the Transport Week taking place in Moscow. Problems are also observed in the regional network. “Roads that can be repaired quickly and inexpensively have run out,” said the head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who is responsible for the transport industry, promised to analyze pricing in this area, as well as revise the rules for attracting private investment in road construction.

Prospects for the development of the road network were discussed yesterday during the planning discussion “Russia 2035: towards a new economy of transport” as part of the Transport Week taking place in Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported that by the end of 2023, on average across the country, more than half – 52% of the entire regional road network – had already been brought into standard condition (according to the original plan, it was 50% in 2024). He also recalled that 136 thousand km of main federal and regional roads are united into a single “backbone network” (the State Duma previously adopted a separate law for this), 85% of which must be repaired by 2027. To this end, the Russian government has adopted a five-year road activity plan with funding of more than 13 trillion rubles.

Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin noted that over the past three years, 7 thousand km of federal roads have been built in Russia: “This is a very good result, so many have not been built before. But there is concern that the level of maintenance of federal roads is decreasing.” He cited data according to which in 2020, 85% of federal cars were in standard condition, and in 2023 the figure dropped to 73%. “We need to maintain this balance. Because how will we then carry out the president’s instructions? “said Igor Levitin. “I consider it necessary to consider this issue separately in the government.”

As Kommersant previously reported, in March, the head of the State Duma Committee on Transport, Yevgeny Moskvichev, asked the White House to allow Rosavtodor to redirect 200 billion rubles planned for road construction to repair federal highways with a total length of 16.5 thousand km. Rosavtodor then confirmed that the general condition of departmental roads has been deteriorating for several years, including due to the transfer of “bad” regional roads to the jurisdiction of the federation (due to which the general level of the condition of the federal network is falling), a funding shortage, and increased traffic intensity.

The head of Buryatia, Alexey Tsydenov, supporting Mr. Levitin, said that it would not be easy to bring 85% of the entire backbone network to a standard state, hinting that this may require additional funding. “Previously, those sections that could be done quickly were done for less money,” he said. “Now, roughly speaking, roads that can be repaired quickly and inexpensively have run out. Each subsequent plot turns out to be more expensive.” Mr. Tsydenov said that it was time to “go out” (meaning, obviously, planned repairs) to those roads that were repaired in 2018 as part of the national project “Safe Quality Roads” in order to maintain them taking into account the growing traffic and changes in logistics. “In the West-East direction, freight traffic doubled by 2019,” said Mr. Tsydenov. “This affects wear and tear, and this must be included in road maintenance costs.”

Marat Khusnullin cited data according to which in some subjects of the federation five times more is spent on maintaining the regional network than on maintaining the federal one. Let us remind you that the costs of maintaining federal cars are fixed by government decree; there is no such document for regional routes. “There is definitely something to do here. It is necessary to determine how much actual maintenance costs,” said Mr. Khusnullin. “The Ministry of Transport, Rosavtodor, and governors are already actively working on this.” The Deputy Prime Minister also announced a revision of the rules for attracting extra-budgetary funding for road construction. “We analyzed about 50 transport concessions that were issued throughout the country. Only a few of them are successful,” said the Deputy Prime Minister. “The rest either have some problems or are in the state where they started, but cannot finish it.” He gave the example of the Khabarovsk bypass opened in 2022: “They built a bypass road, and now the region must give away its entire road fund for a concession.” The Ministry of Transport of the Khabarovsk Territory previously provided data that from 2022 to 2031 the region will have to pay the company that built the bypass almost 27 billion rubles. as compensation for construction costs. “We definitely don’t need such concessions,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

Ivan Buranov