Traffic light at the intersection of Kosinsky highway and Saltykovskaya street may lead to traffic jams after the launch of the M-12

The launch in September of a through passage between the Moscow High-Speed ​​Diameter and the M-12 toll highway may result in traffic jams within the capital, experts warn. At the intersection of Kosinsky highway and Saltykovskaya street, which connects highways, the Moscow mayor’s office left a traffic light. A flyover was planned here, but it was not built. The capital’s TsODD promises to adjust the traffic so that the traffic light causes a minimum of difficulty.

Users of roads.ru (a specialized information and analytical portal about roads) have been vigorously discussing the fate of one of the intersections in the east of Moscow, at the intersection of Kosinsky Highway and Saltykovskaya Street, in recent weeks. So far, this is the usual intersection of two city highways. But in less than a month, it is planned to launch the remaining (including the Moscow region) sections of the M-12 Vostok toll highway from Moscow to Arzamas (Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said he was ready to open traffic on September 5). After that, all transport traffic from the M-12 Vostok toll highway will pour into the capital through the intersection. According to Avtodor estimates, at the start, the daily traffic intensity will be about 15,000 cars, in five years it will grow to 30,000, and the maximum possible traffic load will be 40,000 cars per day. In early September, the city authorities also plan to open the remaining sections of the Moscow High-Speed ​​Diameter (MSD) near the M-12, providing through traffic between the M-11 and M-12 highways through the city. On the MKAD-M-12 section, the Moscow TsODD expects traffic of 124,000 cars per day.

“So much money to spend in construction, making a bunch of bridges, multi-level interchanges and not making one interchange? – one of the participants in the discussion on roads.ru is indignant. – At that point, most likely, the traffic will be maximum. It’s just tin.” “The whole new highway will be in front of this traffic light, in both directions,” agrees another. “This is some kind of profanity.” “I really sympathize with the residents of these areas, but everyone will stand,” adds another participant in the discussion.

Both routes are positioned by the authorities as the largest road projects of recent times: MSD – Moscow, M-12 – federal authorities. The capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin regularly inspects the construction site (the southern and eastern sections of the diameter are being completed now). Marat Khusnullin recently reported on the situation on the M-12 to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on the development of the construction industry: on December 20, he promised, traffic would be opened from Arzamas to Kazan.

In September 2022, the authorities were going to build an overpass on the site of the traffic light, which is now causing so much controversy. The City Planning and Land Commission of Moscow even approved the draft plan for the territory of the interchange. But the building never came to fruition. “The project has been prepared, but is being coordinated by other executive authorities of the city,” the press service of the Moscow Architecture Committee told Kommersant. “We cannot tell you exactly about the timing of construction and commissioning of the interchange.” The “Targeted Investment Program of the City of Moscow for 2022–2025” does not provide funds for the construction of the interchange, Kommersant was told in the Moscow Construction Department.

The capital’s TsODD is trying to find a way out of the situation. The Kommersant center said that they had already analyzed “possible risks due to an increase in the number of cars after the opening of the M-12 highway.” “We have provided for the opening of an additional lane of direct running towards the region, work is already underway with colleagues from the overhaul department to widen the road,” the TsODD said. crossroads.” It is important that the phases of the traffic lights are set in priority to allow traffic to pass on the M-12, a Kommersant source in the Avtodor state company notes.

The situation will depend on actual, not predicted traffic, says Blue Buckets traffic coordinator Petr Shkumatov. “The problem is still in the Ulitsa Dmitrievskogo metro station, to which buses, minibuses and taxis turn at this intersection,” he specified. Alexander Kulakov, director of the Institute for Transport Economics at the Higher School of Economics, says that without a flyover there will be difficulties anyway. “For M-12 users, the traffic light is definitely inconvenient,” he explains. “But Moscow, perhaps, kept the traffic light intentionally in order to restrict traffic at the entrance to the city. To some extent, this can be called a conflict of interest.” Mr. Kulakov emphasizes that it is impossible to keep the traffic light in the current mode of operation – it is necessary to reduce the number of phases and introduce the ability to “stretch” traffic along the Kosinsky Highway from the M-12 side so that there are no traffic jams at least along the main route.

Ivan Buranov