Traffic jams cost Moscow $1.3 billion a year

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Published: 20 July, 2010, 22:30
Edited: 21 July, 2010, 08:54

RIA Novosti / Vladimir Vyatkin

TAGS: Russia, Vehicles, Prime Time Russia

Russia’s traffic police has calculated how much money Moscow could save if the city authorities manage to tackle the gridlock problem.

“The annual damage from traffic jams amounts to a giant sum of 40 billion rubles,” said Viktor Kiryanov, Russia’s chief traffic officer. “I hope that the Transport Ministry will finally address the issue and we will understand where we are all going and what to do.”

Meanwhile, according to the Russian traffic police, the situation can hardly improve. The number of cars in Moscow is constantly growing – even during the financial crisis the number of autos grew by 900,000.

The way forward, Kiryanov said, is quite evident: the city simply needs more roads, more junctions, more regulation, and more parking spaces.

The latter is the most heated issue – Muscovites park very densely, often violating the rules. Kiryanov even suggested the introduction of stricter punishment for illegal parking, such as large fines and taking away drivers licenses.

The problem, however, seems extremely hard to fix, as now Moscow can provide parking spaces for only 30% of vehicles.

According to a survey carried out by IBM, 42% of Muscovites spend more than three hours a day in traffic jams. City residents also complaint that traffic is bad for their health (57%) and work (33%). 35% said that they had to return home because they just could not make it to work at least once a month. Moreover, Muscovites ranked second in a survey of the angriest drivers in the world.