“Safe and high-quality roads” strategic project will fit 50% of regional roads in populous regions to the regulatory requirements by 2018 year and 85% of them to the proper state by 2025 year. It was announced at the Council of strategic development and priority projects under the President of Russia on September 21, 2016.
Russian government pays much attention to reconstruction of the roads in recent years. 65% of Federal highways were aligned standards with funding 91% of required budget. It impacted immediately on traffic safety – road deaths began to fall. Regarding to regional and local roads, only 39% of them meet state requirements due to they are funded at the level of 15% of the demanded volumes.
In order to improve the situation the Government is going to increase control over the filling and spending of regional road funds, to send annually additional 40 bln rubles from increased fuel excise taxes. Furthermore, relevant Ministries have been instructed to boost the adoption of new standards that will allow using of modern technology and materials in road construction. The Government is going also to involve social control over road construction. For these purposes special online portals have been launched where citizens are able to control management and expenditure of road funds, to report about identified problem sites.
Source: Kremlin.
