Igor Levitin: ''The ministry of transport got in trouble with quality roads''
Collegium of Tatarstan Transport Ministry: three-times awarded Safin, a deadlock with school transportation, and why Dietrich does not want to tighten the punishment for 'parking oafs'
''When they build a house, they recall to construct roads when they start thinking how to leave from there,'' Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin recalled the post-Soviet practice of housing construction at the enlarged meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Transport and Roads of the Republic of Tatarstan. Anticipating the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the State Council with Vladimir Putin, he said that the development of urban environment comes to the forefront of the priorities of the federal government and predicted a boom of road construction in the cities. What gaps Tatarstan Minister of Transport Lenar Safin saw in the national project ''Safe and Quality Roads'', about whom Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin complained and how the federal authorities propose to bring bus transportation of schoolchildren in rural areas out of the deadlock — read in the report of Realnoe Vremya.
The day before Putin's arrival
By coincidence or by special organizational calculation, but the final panel of the ministry of transport and roads of the Republic of Tatarstan was held exactly before the upcoming meeting of the Presidium of the State Council of the Russian Federation with Vladimir Putin. As you know, it is devoted to the problems of housing construction in the country. You may ask why road builders? Where housing is, and where roads are? Nevertheless, the federal authorities consider both areas as the main components of comfortable urban environment. It is through this prism the mission of developers and road builders is seen.
Therefore, the day before the arrival of President Vladimir Putin to Kazan, top persons of the entire road transport complex of the country arrived in advance. They visited the major sites. Directly on the sectoral collegium meeting, there arrived Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Dietrich, Head of the Federal Agency for Air Transport Alexander Neradko, the management of Russian Railways and of the Federal Road Agency. In short, the most influential and authoritative lobbyists of the industry stayed for a couple of days in Kazan. And here, just by a happy coincidence, that day it was the 50th anniversary of Minister of Transport and Roads of Tatarstan Lenar Safin, about which Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin reminded. Looking ahead, we will tell that Safin three times was awarded honorary titles to the applause of the hall.
Airports ''flew'' past the infrastructure plan at 6 trillion
In the report, Lenar Safin listed the main results of the road transport complex of Tatarstan for 2018. First of all, he noted a significant increase in passenger traffic from the airports of Kazan and Zakamye. According to him, Kazan International Airport for the first time in recent history has reached the threshold of 3 million passengers. At the same time, the absolute increase was 19,8% compared to last year. Begishevo Airport due to a rapid development of the route network is approaching the mark of 1 million people (777,000 passengers). The increase is 32,2%. Of course, this could not but have a beneficial effect on profit: Kazan International Airport increased it 2 times — up to 493 million rubles, and Begishevo — 5 times up to 126 million rubles.
The Tatarstan airline UVT Aero can add drive to Kazan airport. According to the minister, now ''options for direct communication between Kazan and Munich, as well as Tel Aviv, are being discussed''. Another carrier is negotiating to open a flight to Budapest. ''Kazan is already included in the route table of the agreement between Russia and Hungary on air traffic,'' the minister said. However, for some reason these airports were not included in the comprehensive infrastructure plan until 2024, approved by the Russian government, worth 6 trillion rubles. The only project that is included in it is the construction of the bypass route of Naberezhnye Chelny and Nizhnekamsk. It will reduce the mileage by 50 km, said Safin.
They are also persevere in their attempts to include in the Complex infrastructure plan until 2024 the construction project of the Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway. ''Unfortunately, it included only the first stage of the project: the section Zheleznodorozhny-Gorokhovets, with the organization of traffic from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod. With additional funding, the construction of the HSR will be extended to Kazan,'' the minister reported.
At the same time, they want to include the construction of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan high-speed highway, which will be built with the participation of Rosavtodor, in the Comprehensive infrastructure plan until 2024. ''The road section on the territory of the republic is to connect three federal highways, which will allow to redistribute traffic flows and provide transit traffic bypassing Kazan, will connect Innopolis with the enterprises of the Kama cluster along the shortest path. The project will strengthen the transit potential of the central part of Russia,'' said Lenar Safin. He proposed to include in the programme of activities of the state company for 2019 the activities for design and construction of the highway in accordance with the Comprehensive infrastructure plan. This year it is planned to start the railway ring around Kazan. The works on development of design and estimate documentation with passing of examination of the first stage of the project are to come to the end. In 2019, on the terms of co-financing with RZD OJSC, it is planned to build Kompressorny transport interchange hub.
Safin asks for bridges
Reporting on the repair of roads under the federal programme ''Safe and Quality Roads'', Lenar Safin noticed a big gap. According to him, the federal programme does not cover bridges on local roads.
''Most of these bridges were built more than 20-30 years ago, without the development of design and estimate documentation, in an economic way and from scrap materials,'' he said and proposed to consider the possibility of allocating additional funding for the repair of artificial structures on the terms of co-financing by the region within the framework of the national project.
Later, Yevgeny Dietrich admitted that there was an attempt to create a separate programme, but due to lack of resources it ''failed''. Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin responded to this initiative in a promising way. According to him, it will be possible to return to it ''at the expense of savings on programmes'' or at the expense of unfulfilled projects. In short, they will have to wait for the money for the repair of bridges by residual principle.
Metshin against ''parking oafs''
Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin complained to the federal guests about ''parking oafs''. ''An extremely topical issue of leaving on the street and road network of cars under road signs and in paid parking lots located on highways of general use removed state license plates,'' said Metshin. ''For today, the federal legislation doesn't provide a parking ban with the removed, unreadable license plate numbers and, as a result, there is no administrative punishment. The absence of sanctions provokes motorists to violation and allows to evade responsibility.''
The mayor added that the problem is massive and relevant for all regions of the country. ''I have sent an appeal on the possibility of an initiative to amend the administrative code in terms of the prohibition of movement with removed registration plate numbers, and their operation in general.''
''The issue of punishment is always very delicate, it is important that the toughening of the requirements does not hit the law-abiding citizens,'' Yevgeny Dietrich later gave a comment to journalists. ''There are a lot of ways when one can play a nasty trick on a friend or foe – removing the license plate number or stick a leaf from a tree. All these points need to be carefully considered before toughening the punishment,'' he said.
Head of the Nizhnekamsk PATP (public transport enterprise) Yury Ivanov raised the problem of bus transportation of schoolchildren in the villages, which is becoming unprofitable due to low tariffs. They promised to think over the solution of this problem.
Levitin: it is impossible to build housing without roads
''The Presidium meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation on Construction and Housing and Communal Services is to be held the next day, but there is such a small episode — in the development of urban environment. Never paid attention to it before. But tomorrow the State Council will make this issue on a par with construction and housing. Yesterday we visited the facilities that the republic reconstructed. Usually, when building a house, they recall to contruct roads only later — when everyone starts to think how to leave out there. In my opinion, the issue of infrastructure for housing will be the main at the meeting of the State Council. In order to ensure the commissioning of 120 million square metres of housing — and this is a very difficult task – one needs to understand that it is necessary to build kindergartens, nurseries, sports grounds. So that 55% of the country's population could do exercises every day. This is 8 million people. Where should they train? Of course, we are returning to those yards that were once built,'' Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin concluded.
According to him, the road transport industry is going to experience a new rise. Because the tasks on federal roads have been completed. ''Now we need to pay more attention to people, and the ministry of transport got in trouble with quality roads,'' summed up Levitin.
