The Ministry of Internal Affairs softened the requirements for the developed street design rules

The Ministry of Internal Affairs agreed not to introduce a number of new requirements for the design of city roads. The draft government decree prepared by the department planned to make “visibility triangles” at pedestrian crossings and raised streets near tram stops mandatory. But after comments from the authorities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Kommersant found out, these standards were left as recommendations.

The working group of the Government Analytical Center “Road Safety” agreed on a draft government order developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs with new requirements in the field of road design and traffic management. Now the document will be sent to the government apparatus.

Amendments, as Kommersant reported, are being made to order No. 2438, which lists mandatory GOST standards in the field of traffic safety. The Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to expand their list to increase the level of traffic safety (the accident rate this year, we recall, increased by 5%). Thus, among other things, it is proposed to oblige road workers to equip diagonal crossings with traffic lights for pedestrians and dotted markings, as well as to regulate the location of the installation of a green light call button at the crossing. In highway projects with a “high” speed limit of up to 130 km/h, lighting is proposed as a mandatory option.

After comments from experts from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kommersant found out, some of the norms were excluded from the draft. In the first edition, in particular, it was proposed to mandatory raise the roadway at tram stops located on roads with one lane. This rule is difficult to implement, according to the Traffic Management Center (TCOC). In Moscow today, as a rule, tram platforms of the “island” type are used. They are separated from the roadway and eliminate the need to get on and off the tram onto the road, the center explained to Kommersant. If the road width is not enough, then a “Vienna-type” platform (a raised section of the road) is used, but this option is less safe and is used only in exceptional cases on narrow streets, the data center said.

It was also proposed to make the so-called visibility triangles for pedestrians mandatory. We are talking about a sector of visibility (the parameters are calculated using a special formula), within which a pedestrian entering the crossing should be able to see approaching vehicles without interference. Thus, the “visibility triangles” must be freed from tall vegetation, kiosks, fences, etc. The Traffic Management Directorate (DODD) of St. Petersburg opposed it. Today, leading specialist of the directorate Dmitry Popov reminded Kommersant, traffic rules prohibit stopping five meters in front of a zebra crossing; no additional signs are needed to designate this zone. A mandatory “visibility triangle” would lead to an increase in this distance to 12–15 m. In addition, according to his calculations, in St. Petersburg alone, 2 thousand signs would have to be installed on the border of “visibility triangles,” which would cost the city 57 million rub. “Giving mandatory status to the norm could encourage local authorities to address the issue of pedestrian safety. It’s easy to scare people with money, but no one considers the socio-economic damage that a city receives as a result of the death of a resident in an accident,” urbanist Vasily Vishnevsky from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on whose streets this element of traffic safety is used, told Kommersant.

The authorities of St. Petersburg opposed another innovation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs: when pedestrians and turning cars move simultaneously in the same traffic light phase (conflict regulation), the zebra crossing must be “visible” from the stop line. In the conditions of dense historical buildings in St. Petersburg, according to DODD, it is almost impossible to fulfill this requirement. The traffic police, however, did not consider the introduced mandatory rule a problem.

“The agreed document is a good example when the Ministry of Internal Affairs agreed with the comments and met the expert community halfway,” Evgeniy Litvin, co-chairman of the “Road Safety” working group within the framework of the “regulatory guillotine”, told Kommersant. “Of course, as they are tested in an optional mode, those or other standards, other amendments will be made to Order No. 2438, we are ready to discuss them. But in general, I believe that all issued standards should be immediately mandatory, then, in principle, no disputes will arise.”

Ivan Buranov