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RF transport minister discusses snowfall-driven traffic jams on Moscow-St Petersburg highway

The 700-kilometer-long federal highway M-10 Rossiya is the Moscow-Tver-Veliky Novgorod-St.Petersburg

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

TVER, December 2 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov is holding a meeting in the government of the Tver Region on Sunday. “The measures, which the regional authorities are taking to clean up the aftermaths of the natural disaster, are being discussed,” a source in the regional government told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

The authorities of the highway M-10, which turned out to be stricken in many kilometres of snow-driven traffic jams, are situated in Tver.

The 700-kilometer-long federal highway M-10 Rossiya is the Moscow-Tver-Veliky Novgorod-St. Petersburg mainline federal motor highway. The highway is running through the Moscow, Tver, Veliky Novgorod and Leningrad Regions, as well as the streets of the cities Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In the north this highway is connected to the Scandinavia highway running from St. Petersburg to Vyborg.

Earlier on Sunday, Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov has made a flight over the Leningrad, Veliky Novgorod and Tver Regions, which were stricken in a heavy snowfall.

The traffic jams have stretched for many kilometres and the trucks turned out to be blocked on the highway Rossiya in the Tver Region last Friday. The traffic of trucks is still stricken over the need to provide the free access to the snowploughs.

The hot meals are offered on the highway, the stations are deployed to warm up the drivers and provide medical services for them, the fuel supplies are delivered timely.

The round-the-clock hotline was opened in the main emergency situation department in the Tver Region.

The highway M-10 is one of the most loaded and problematic highways for the traffic. Since 2008 the emergency helicopters are making regular patrolling flights along the federal highway.

A toll high-speed relief highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg is planned to have been built by 2018. Starting from 2016 the section of the highway from St. Petersburg to the Russian border with Finland will be made toll.

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