Travelling to Real Russia ? Look at the roads that you’re using while you’re there !…. Part 1
Russian roads are unfortunately notorious for their poor quality and lack of maintenance, and are joked about light heartedly by foreigners and Russian citizens alike. But deep down there are some serious reasons why Russian drivers suffer constantly as they attempt to traverse Russia and its cities.
Scale
One of the major problems is the sheer scale of the country, Russia is the largest country on Earth and would need an astronomic budget to even come close to creating a road network similar to the USA for example. Just take a look at some figures :
The total area of Russia is 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi)
The two widest separated points in Russia are about 8,000 km (4,971 mi)
The Russian Federation spans 9 time zones
Russia possesses 10% of the world’s arable land
Russia has an extensive coastline of over 37,000 km (22,991 mi)
Lake Baikal alone contains over one fifth of the world’s fresh surface water
The population of Russia is 141,927,297 as of 1 January 2010
There are not just the motorways to consider, any major road infrastructure requires some or all of the following :
independent specialized road engineering design teams tendered from companies around the world
full, generous budgeting allowances from public/private partnership and civil engineering departments
optimum quality material conforming to durability world standards to avoid patching every few years
long term cross political party support, motivation and desire
long term goals to increase revenue to remote parts of Russia
sufficient funds to allow generous camber and drainage systems to be incorporated into areas susceptible to snow and ice build up or heavy rain
a generous government inspired and led compulsory purchase scheme to compensate property owners where dwellings obstruct large scale civil engineering projects.
simple transparent accounting procedures to encourage investors and potential investors to track funds and query unauthorised transfers
consideration of installing cheap road toll systems to finance long stretches of motorway in the long term
method of police control authority with powers to strictly maintain the safety of the road for all users, possibly using speeding cash cameras and heavy fines for transgressors channeled back into the cost of road building and maintenance
regular police patrols and sos points en route to prevent costly pile ups
regular privately tendered motorway service stations with play areas, hotels and restaurants
gradual introduction to other countries in terms of promoting access to hitherto difficult to reach areas in Russia
a one or two generation plan at government level to integrate road and rail networks converging at strategic points across the country
where possible encourage private enterprise to pay for sections of transport, install procedures which enforce new developers to fund the surrounding road networks and amenities for the local community, common in the West
The list goes on and on, at the moment, if my sources are correct, the chain is very simple. Central control of road building projects is in Moscow, a certain amount of money for a motorway network for example, heads out to a city in far East Russia.
Somewhere inbetween sizeable chunks “disappear” and the amount available at the end dwindles so much so that only the poorest of the poorest roads can be built.
Multiply this scenario across Russia, for generation after generation and the result is an enormous problem, the solution of which will take integrity, time , patience and an awful lot of money.
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