The M-12 Vostok toll highway is open on all sections from Moscow to Kazan

The M-12 Vostok toll highway is open on all sections from Moscow to Kazan – President Vladimir Putin launched traffic along them. Road for 900 billion rubles. built in a “record” three years, said Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin. A one-way trip will cost car owners 4.5 thousand rubles, and about the same amount will be spent on fuel. Avtodor assures that you can now get from Moscow to Kazan for this money in 6.5 hours.

Until today, all sections of the M-12 were open to traffic, except for two – Arzamas-Shumerlya and the last section in Tatarstan. Vladimir Putin launched the movement along them. From Moscow to A-108 the road is three-lane in each direction, to Kazan it is two-lane. The permitted speed is 110 km/h, there are no cameras. The state company Avtodor, which operates the new road, assures that now you can get from Moscow to the exit to Kazan (M-12 is 40 km from the capital of Tatarstan) by car, covering a distance of 810 km in 6.5 hours (excluding stops for refueling , there are nine of them in total on each side of the road). Today at 16:30 Yandex estimated the travel time at nine hours.

M-12, let us remind you, has been under construction since 2020. Infrastructure projects “of this scale” have not yet been built in the Russian Federation in such a time frame, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said today. The head of Avtodor, Vyacheslav Petushenko, said that construction cost “less than 900 billion rubles.” At the feasibility study stage in 2017, the route was estimated at 622 billion rubles; in February 2022, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation spoke about increasing the cost of the project to 911 billion rubles; in December 2022, the amount of 901 billion rubles appeared in government documents. According to Mr. Khusnullin, the road will bring a total of 1.8 trillion rubles. in Russia’s GDP for 20 years.

Tariffs for travel along the entire M-12 at Avtodor were partially published a week before the opening: 4.48 thousand rubles. for a passenger car (the accumulated 15 percent discount in the loyalty system allows you to reduce the price to 3.8 thousand rubles) from Moscow to the exit to Innopolis (750 km from Moscow and 60 km from Kazan). Based on the average fuel consumption of 10 liters per 100 km, you will need 80 liters of fuel to travel, which is another 4–4.5 thousand rubles. A Moscow-Kazan plane ticket can be bought for 5–7 thousand rubles. (1 hour 45 minutes of flight), by train – from 2.5 thousand rubles. (reserved seat, 11–12 hours on the road).

Getting to Kazan by car along the M-12 turns out to be more profitable if several people are traveling, concludes the coordinator of the Blue Buckets movement, Pyotr Shkumatov.

Travel money is collected from users using the “Free Flow” system: cameras and sensors read the license plate number (or a contactless transponder), and the driver is billed. “The system of automatic withdrawal of money is working,” the head of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov reported today, having driven along the entire highway the day before. The fine for non-payment is 1.5 thousand rubles. for passenger cars, 5 thousand for trucks and buses.

In November, a number of media reported that travel on the M-12 would cost 6 thousand rubles. for passenger cars. Journalists quoted the project manager for the seventh stage of M-12, Dmitry Kostin, who suggested that the tariff to Kazan would be set at 5-6 thousand rubles. based on the fact that travel along half of the highway to Arzamas (open at that time) cost 2.8 thousand rubles. The state company Avtodor did not confirm the information then, and on a direct line with Vladimir Putin on December 14, the president was asked about the tariff, which would allegedly be 6 thousand rubles. The head of state promised to check, noting that, according to his data, the price should not exceed 4.5 thousand rubles. Avtodor responded promptly, publishing the price within a few hours on the same day.

Today, the remaining tariffs were also published: from Moscow to Kazan airport – 4.8 thousand rubles, to the exit to the Shali-Bavly highway (last interchange on M-12) – 4.99 thousand rubles. for passenger cars. From here to the free M-7 Volga is another 7 km.

M-12, we recall, is planned to be extended to Yekaterinburg through the expansion and reconstruction of sections of the federal roads M-7, R-351 Ekaterinburg-Tyumen, as well as the construction of a bypass for Naberezhnye Chelny and Nizhnekamsk, a toll section Dyurtyuli-Achit. The work is promised to be completed in 2024, only areas with new construction will be paid. Vladimir Putin also announced today the extension of the road to Tyumen in 2025 (the distance from Moscow will be 1.98 thousand km).

Ivan Buranov