Will Rooftop Roads Cure Moscow’s Traffic Jams?
10.09.2007 (10:46) | Moscow News
Traffic congestion and a shortage of real estate are among the most pressing problems of the Russian capital.Thus, a project that promises to kill two birds with one stone seems attractive: the German engineering company Strassenhaus Ltd. (which loosely means "rooftop roads") proposes to link road and housing construction. In other words, roads for light vehicles would be built atop commercial and residential buildings.
The plan was unveiled last fall and was greeted by a skeptical reaction from City Hall. But eventually City Hall took the German proposal seriously, and by mid-July, Moscow officials set up a working group responsible for the design and construction of a pilot section of a rooftop-level road.
Engineers say that such a system - at a tentative cost of $30 billion - would remove 30 percent of traffic from street-level roads.
At first glance, the rooftop road project looks promising. Should it be successfully implemented, Moscow would acquire a network of roads free of traffic lights, duplicating the capital's main transport arteries. In all, 210 kilometers of new roads are to be built under the project, the majority of which will travel atop specially designed buildings.
According to Strassenhaus Ltd. specialists, a variety of buildings will be designed under the system, and interchanges will be integrated into high rises. The basic design for straightaway sections of the road will consist of four to five levels, the top level being purely technical - designed, above all, to isolate the other premises from the noise and vibration caused by the traffic, but also accommodating pipes and cables, as well as an automated system to transport cargo in special capsules.
The other levels will be used for offices, apartments, hotels, retail facilities and parking. These premises will go to the German developers, who will bear the full construction costs without taking a cent from the capital's budget (they expect to recoup their costs by leasing out adjacent space and charging tolls for the use of the elevated roads).
Over Parks and Lawns
Doubts over the project center on the question: how comfortable would it be to live and work beneath a busy highway? A test is needed.
"Our pilot section, 1,100 meters long, will duplicate a short stretch of Varshavskoye Highway," said Strassenhaus Ltd. Press Secretary Natalya Volf, referring to a southbound thoroughfare leading out of Moscow. "Over time, it will grow into a motorway linking central Moscow with Domodedovo airport. First sections of the road will have parking spaces and a hotel."
Perhaps the experiment will be a success, and prove to be technically feasible. Nevertheless, even at this early stage it is obvious that the project will encounter a large number of obstacles.
Just a few days ago, for example, the German company posted a map of the future road network on its official Web site. Elevated roads are to form two beltways around Moscow. The outer one will more or less coincide with Moscow's outer ring road known as MKAD, running parallel to it, as a second tier. There should be no problem here: there is plenty of space for extra construction.
The inner road, at first glance, does not pose any problems either. In the north it coincides with Moscow's yet-to-be-built fourth ring road; in the southwest and south, it is to pass along Aminyevskoye Highway, Lobachevsky and Obruchev Streets, and Balaklavsky Avenue. Its southeastern and eastern sections will run parallel to inner-city railways. In principle, there should be sufficient space for building "strassenhauses."
There is a snag though: the new road is planned to cut right through Moskvoretsky Park. At this spot the Moskva River forms a curve, and the strassenhaus road must cross the body of water twice. It may be recalled that the new Krasnopresnensky Avenue will also cross the river almost at the same spot (a cable bridge is being built for it now). A tunnel will be laid in a section where the future avenue passes through the natural park. Extremely complex and costly engineering work will be required at this section of the elevated road. However, project representatives have not mentioned anything about these hurdles.
Generally, the new road network is to have many "points of contact" with the capital's islets of greenery. One of the two parallel roads that moves alongside Dmitrovskoye Highway in the north is to split the Ostankino natural historical park, which, incidentally, is at odds with environmental laws. Another stretch will affect the Kolomenskoye area in the south, albeit not very much. A multilevel intersection is planned to be built in the Nagatinskaya Isthmus park.
In short, the Strassenhaus project can harm Moscow's environment and natural scenery, although it is too soon to say how exactly much damage. Another problem is the effect the project have on the capital's skyline The German designers wisely abandoned the original plan of linking the new road network with Moscow's Sadovoye, or Garden Ring. Now the plan is to lead the new line along Kutuzovsky Avenue. There are two options here: First, cut down the roadside trees, narrow the pavement and use the vacant space to build low rises to support the elevated road system. The second option is to pull down the Stalin-era high-end apartment buildings and erect low-rise strassenhauses in their place. Neither option will beautify the city, to say nothing about the serious problems this plan would create for a large number of city residents. Kutuzovsky's fate is to be shared by Prospekt Mira (Peace Avenue).
Should the project get the go ahead, the new transport network will also pass through some of Moscow's new development areas. In particular, the inner road ring is to travel via a newly built part of Khoroshevo Mnevniki in the north west. The section that is planned to move alongside Kutuzovsky Avenue will disturb the Park City residential complex: presumably, some of the upscale apartment blocks will even have to be demolished.
The Bottom Line
Frankly speaking, it is hard to believe that the strassenhaus project will be implemented in Moscow any time soon. At any rate, there is nothing of the kind in any of the world's megalopolises. Furthermore, the project's insufficient development on the technical and engineering level raises numerous questions. The proposed routes for this transport network have been revised more than once, yet it is still not clear how the new roads will negotiate the water obstacles. It is difficult to take seriously the argument that the roads will "pass via existing buildings, bridges, interchanges and on/off ramps" (from the project's promo material). In short, from every indication, the strassenhaus project could become yet another flop (like City Hall's monorail project).
Rooftop roads can only relieve urban traffic jams if the system is intensive. Meanwhile, Strassenhaus Ltd. is not particularly interested in developing Moscow's existing roads: they will make a profit from every building they erect; even if the project is halted at some stage, they will be none the worse off for that.
Incidentally, it is wrong to think that if no funding is to come from the city budget for building new roads, the capital will lose nothing should the project fail. After all, the city will have to provide land plots and prepare them for construction, which is a very costly undertaking. Substantial resources will also be required to pay relocation and other compensation. This will prove a heavy burden on the city budget. If the new road network is not completed or if it proves unviable, hefty tracts of expensive land will have been given over to low-rise buildings.
If and when the elevated road system is built, will it really solve the capital's transport problems? Two or three lanes one way (according to the project) are unlikely to make driving in Moscow any faster or more convenient. It is no accident that regular, ground-level roads are much wider. It is not ruled out that even without traffic lights, elevated roads will not grind to a halt during rush hour. Case in point: the Third Ring Road has no traffic lights, but traffic jams are an everyday fact of ‘rush hour' there.
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