The route to the east has been opened for motorists.

On Friday, the President of the Russian Federation launched traffic on new sections of the M-12 Vostok highway: now you can travel from Moscow to Arzamas at a speed of 110 km/h in three to four hours, paying a fare of just under 3 thousand rubles. At the same time, the Moscow City Hall opened traffic on the eastern section of the Moscow High-Speed ​​Diameter (MSD), adjacent to M-12. On Saturday, traffic will be allowed on the southern section of the MSD, as well as on the new toll Northern alternate of Kutuzovsky Prospekt (Bagration Avenue).

Until now, the M-12 operated in two unconnected sections in the Moscow region and the Vladimir region. On September 8, President Vladimir Putin opened traffic on the rest: now there is a through passage from Moscow (more precisely, from Novokosino, where the M-12 begins) to Arzamas. Drivers have access to 415 km of toll road without traffic lights or junctions: travel for passenger cars will cost 2.8 thousand rubles. for the entire section, to Murom – 2.1 thousand rubles, to Vladimir – 1.4 thousand rubles, to Orekhovo-Zuevo – 585 rubles, to Elektrougli – 130 rubles. Tolls are collected according to the “Free Flow” system: there are no toll points or barriers on the highway, the fact of passage and the distance of the trip is recorded by cameras. Before the “big concrete road” A-108 on the M-12 there are three lanes in each direction, then two. Permitted speed is 110 km/h. However, Avtodor does not rule out that the limit will subsequently be raised to 130 km/h.

A Kommersant correspondent toured the new sections a few days before the opening as part of a press tour organized by Avtodor. Murom, in particular, can now be reached in 2.5 hours (on the free M-7 it should take four to five hours). At the same time, on some sections of the road there are problems with communication, in particular, on the third stage (from Vladimir to Murom) in some places there was no signal at all, or there was only telephone communication without the Internet, although many cell towers were installed. “The entire section from Moscow to Arzamas should be provided with communications by the end of the year, as originally planned,” the Ministry of Digital Development promised Kommersant. “At the moment, M-12 coverage is 40–60%, depending on the telecom operator. The Ministry of Digital Development regularly holds meetings with operators and the Avtodor Group of Companies on the issue of providing mobile communication services along the highway. Base stations are placed and launched as soon as the sites are ready and power supply is available.” Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that the route must be provided with communications and the Internet “as soon as possible.”

A similar communication situation occurred several years ago on the M-11 Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. Then drivers also complained about a lack of gas stations, which led to queues at gas stations. In the case of M-12, Avtodor already at the project stage provided 32 sites for multifunctional zones (MFZ), including gas stations, cafes and recreation areas. Currently, on the Moscow-Arzamas section, there are currently five gas stations on each side of the road – two MFZs (including LUKOIL and Gazprom Neft) and three more temporary container gas stations. “We believe that this is enough, the consumer will not have problems,” Vyacheslav Petushenko, head of the state-owned company Avtodor, assured Kommersant. During construction, factories were located or construction materials were stored on the sites designed for the MFZ, he explained, but since the road was opened a year earlier than planned, they did not have time to vacate the territory. By the end of the year, he said, 16 MFZs will operate along the route.

In December, the authorities promise to open the Arzamas-Kazan section; in 2024, the route will be extended to Yekaterinburg: it will include both free sections of the existing M-7 after reconstruction, and new roads.

On Friday, the Moscow City Hall opened traffic on the eastern part of the Moscow High-Speed ​​Diameter (MSD) in Novokosino, allowing Moscow residents to access the M-12 almost freely. Almost – because the capital authorities, let us remind you, left a traffic light at one of the MSD intersections in Novokosino. It is here that experts expect traffic jams due to the flow of traffic from M-12 (“Kommersant” talked about this earlier). On Friday evening, immediately after the grand opening, Yandex showed traffic jams in this place. 40–50 thousand cars will pass through this section every day, according to the Moscow mayor’s office.

On Saturday, also with the participation of Vladimir Putin, it is planned to launch traffic along the southern section of the MSD (builders, according to Kommersant, were finishing the road in emergency mode, the finishing layer of asphalt was laid literally the other day), as well as along the Northern backup of Kutuzovsky Prospekt, called the avenue Bagration. The opening of these facilities was announced the day before by the Kremlin press service. Let us remind you that Bagration Avenue is the first toll road built from scratch within the framework of a concession in Moscow. The new concession company (part of the Leader Management Group) invested 65 billion rubles in the duplicate prospectus. The six-lane route starts from Moscow City, runs along the Belorussian direction of the Moscow Railway to the intersection of the Moscow Ring Road with Molodogvardeyskaya Street, where it joins the Odintsovo toll bypass. Tariffs should be announced soon.

The commissioning of infrastructure (usually transport) facilities on the eve or on the single voting day has already become a tradition of the authorities. In August-September 2018, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin opened new overpasses on the North-Eastern Expressway, Varshavskoye Shosse and the MKAD backup. On August 17, 2023, the mayor’s office launched MCD-3. On September 6 and 8, Sergei Sobyanin opened several new metro stations. The Moscow region authorities recently started traffic on a new overpass in Lyubertsy.

Ivan Buranov