Freeman1-1/Flop Flop 1 Reee-Education 101 6 December, 2021 Congestion Crisis: How Moscow’s Old Design Creates Present Problems Moscow with its long and storied history first appeared in written history in the monastic chronicles of 1147. Rebuilt for the first time after a Mongol invasion in 1237, the build up to the city’s current layout began to take shape. Today Moscow’s basic layout consists of multiple concentric rings with the Kremlin occupying the center ring and the varying districts surrounding it. These rings are connected via small connector streets linking the outer sectors with the inner zone; The city’s basic design makes it hard to incorporate new modern infrastructure. Modern population numbers coupled with numbers of cars the city was never designed to handle readily reduce large areas of the city to a standstill. Very few direct links between the different districts and the towns therein force yet more traffic through the center ring/district and compound the issue further. Traffic problems in Moscow have their roots in the early 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the country started importing large amounts of cars and trucks. The city’s population would also see large increases over the decades which in-turn would help increase demand for personal motor vehicles. Moscow’s population went from slightly more than eight million residents in 1980 to just over ten million people in 2012 with sources projecting current numbers of twelve to thirteen million residents in 2020. The respective number of cars would also grow with the population disproportionately to upgrades and modernization of infrastructure such as roads. Car numbers in Moscow were reported to be around nine-hundred thousand in 1990, grew to around two-million vehicles in the year 2000 and as of 2017 sit above four and a half million registered cars according to the then mayor Sergey Sobyanin. Estimates say there are roughly three-hundred and fifty cars per one thousand residents. With the mass influx of cars into the city, officials made an effort to modernize and upgrade areas inside the outermost city ring as that is where most of the city and traffic occur. Lasting until 2010, the efforts mostly focussed on improving old roads/highways and building new ones. In late 2010 with the problem clearly worsening, not improving, city mayor Sobyanin began investing in revamping and expanding the city’s ancient transportation network. Efforts focussed on the old metro lines, rebuilding the defunct city bus network and building new highways and roads with smarter traffic management solutions while also updating road design itself. City officials have also put effort into a messaging campaign aimed at encouraging use of public transportation services. The number of Moscovites that actually use these networks remains low; Even with numbers steadily increasing it hasn’t been enough to compete against the still growing number of cars on the roads. With the city’s basic layout unalterable, the possible solutions and their scope are severely limited. It would seem the best solutions are those which see a larger availability of public transport and the messaging to get residents to use it, coupled with discouraging personal vehicle use while upgrading and expanding standing surface infrastructure. Flop 2 Works Cited Author - Louis Totton, October 29th, 2018. “Traffic in Moscow; Is the Nightmare Improving?” https://www.russiancourses.com/blog/traffic-moscows-nightmare-improving Author - Anastasia Maltseva, September 09th, 2014. “Congestion Growing as Moscow struggles To Keep Pace With Traffic.” https://www.rbth.com/society/2014/09/09/congestion_growing_as_moscow_struggles_to _keep_pace_with_traffic_jams_39637.html Author - Zhanna Malinovskaya, February 28th, 2017. “Moscow Roads.” https://ktshc.fi/en/blog/moscow-roads Data Index - Macro Trends. “Moscow, Russia Metro Area Population 1950-2021” https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22299/moscow/population Mayor’s Report - Sergey Sobyanin, December 14th, 2017. “Number of Cars quintuples over 27 years.” https://tass.com/society/981132
