South-Eastern and North-Eastern Chords will create a new high-speed diameter in Moscow

During an inspection of the South-Eastern Chord section under construction (from the Entuziastov Highway to Ryazansky Prospekt) Sergei Sobyanin said that the connection of the largest trunks in Moscow would create a new transport reality.

“The South-Eastern Chord is seamlessly integrated into the North-Eastern Chord, creating a Moscow high-speed diameter that runs from the south of the city to its north, to reach the new toll road to St. Petersburg. Nothing alike has ever been built in the history of Moscow,” said Sergei Sobyanin.

According to him, the chord’s section from the Entuziastov Highway to Ryazansky Prospekt is the most difficult of all ever constructed sections of the city. The construction works started in the spring 2020. The three kilometers long six-lane highway (in a straight line less exits to adjacent streets) will run along tracks of the Moscow Central Ring and interconnect major city trunks: Entuziastov Highway, North-Eastern Chord, Ryazansky Prospekt, Third Ring Road and Volgogradsky Prospekt.

14 flyovers with a total length of seven kilometers will be built as part of the section, including three flyovers of the main passage and 11 flyover exits ramps to the North-Eastern Chord, Ryazansky Prospekt, Novokhokhlovskaya and Nizhegorodskaya streets.

Andrey Struk, Deputy General Director of the general contractor company noted that about 200 kilometers of engineering networks, including distribution networks, electrical communication networks, and gas pipelines, had to be relocated to construct the South-Eastern Chord section. The underground river made the task even more difficult.

“This is a challenging section. It entirely consists of flyovers, because it crosses the railway seven times: it crosses the MCC twice, as well as the Gorky and Ryazan tracks of the Moscow Railway,” Andrey Struk added.

At the intersection with the railway tracks of the second Moscow Central Diameter, two overpasses with a total length of 1.3 kilometers will be built.

A total of 11 kilometers of roads will be built and reconstructed.

The adjacent area will be landscaped. 22.5 hectares of lawns will be seeded here, 1,680 trees (linden, maple, willow, birch, mountain ash) and 3,100 shrubs (pigeonberry, ninebark, spirea) will be planted.

The South-Eastern Chord section from the Entuziastov Highway to Ryazansky Prospekt is 42 percent complete. The end of construction is scheduled for 2023, same as for the neighboring section of the South-Eastern Chord from Ryazansky Prospekt to the Third Ring Road.

“I hope that as early as 2023, the South-Eastern Chord, along with the North-Eastern Chord, including this section, will be opened. For sure, this will make a new transport picture both in this section and in the capital as a whole, in terms of travel opportunities, speed and unloading of the Third Ring Road, MKAD, and outbound expressways. This is the major construction site. I hope we will cope with the challenge, ”concluded Sergei Sobyanin.

The link between the major transport arteries of the city will provide more equal distribution of traffic flows, decrease excess mileage of vehicles and reduce traffic on the main outbound expressways in the southeast of the capital: Entuziastov highway, Ryazansky and Volgogradsky Prospekts.

No traffic lights from Entuziastov Highway to Warsaw Highway

The construction of the new city transport artery, the South-Eastern Chord, is the largest project for development of the Moscow road and transport infrastructure in the years to come.

The main route of the South-Eastern Chord will be about 28 kilometers long. The total length of the roads will be about 100 kilometers, including exit ways and reconstruction of the nearby road network with 56 artificial structures of 23 kilometers in length, as well as 12 pedestrian crossings.

The South-Eastern Chord will complete the system of Moscow chord highways — new roads that will become an alternative to the MKAD, the Third Ring Road and passage through the historical center of Moscow.

The chord will run from the Entuziastov Highway to the Varshavskoye Highway, connecting major highways of the city: the North-Eastern Chord, Ryazansky Prospekt, Third Ring Road, Volgogradsky Prospekt, Shosseinaya Street, Kashirskoye Highway, Kaspiyskaya Street, Yuzhnaya Rokada, Podolskikh Kursantov and Lipetskaya Streets, MKAD with exits to Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative districts through the trunk Solntsevo — Butovo — Warsaw highway.

The South-Eastern Chord will improve transport services for residents of more than 20 districts of Moscow, including Nizhegorodsky, Lefortovo, Perovo, Ryazansky, Sokolinaya Gora, Pechatniki, Yuzhnoportovoy, Tekstilshchiki, Nagatinsky Zaton, Maryina Roscha, Lublino, Moskvorechye-Saburovo, Tsaritsyno, Northern Orekhovo-Borisovo, Western Biryulevo, Northern and Southern Chertanovo, Northern and Southern Butovo, Danilovsky and others. They accommodate about 2.5 million people.

The South-Eastern Chord is divided into 10 sections, of which nine are under construction:

– from Entuziastov Highway to Ryazansky Prospekt;

– from Ryazansky Prospekt to the Third Ring Road;

– from Grayvoronovskaya Street to Shosseynaya Street;

– from Shosseynaya Street to Polbina Street;

– from Polbina Street to Kuryanovsky Boulevard;

– from Kuryanovsky Boulevard to Kantemirovskaya Street, including traffic interchange at the intersection with Kashirskoye Highway and the Southern Rokada;

– from Marshal Shestopalov Street to the Paveletsky tracks of the Moscow Railway;

– from the of the Paveletsky tracks of the Moscow Railway to the MKAD;

– from the MKAD to the autoroad Solntsevo — Butovo — Warsaw highway.

One additional section is in the design stage. This is a section along Kaspiyskaya Street from Kantemirovskaya Street to the of the Paveletsky tracks of the Moscow Railway.

New roads of Moscow

In recent years, the Moscow Government maintains the pace of road construction of about 100 kilometers per year. Roads with a length of 1,121.3 kilometers were built in 2011 - 2021, which is 20 percent of the existing street and road network. 331 artificial structures (bridges, tunnels, flyovers) were erected and 274 off-street pedestrian crossings were built.

In 2022, it is planned to construct 91 kilometers of roads, 19 artificial structures and 10 pedestrian crossings. The most significant works and facilities to be the commissioned in the current year are the following ones:

– completion of the North-Eastern chord direct passage construction in the section running from Altufevskoe to Dmitrovskoe Highway;

– traffic interchange at the intersection of the MKAD with the Ostashkovskoye Highway;

– reconstruction of Ivan Franko Street and the Staro-Rublevsky overpass;

– street and road network on the territory of the administrative and business center in Kommunarka;

– street and road network for maintenance of the Kommunarka metro station;

– reconstruction of the main district street from the Ostafyevo platform to the urban district of Shcherbinka.

The key project of the coming years is still the construction of new chord highways: the North-Eastern Chord, the South-Eastern Chord and the Southern Rokada.