Moscow Traffic Collapse Strands Passengers, Taxi Prices Soar
Passengers from the Moscow region cannot leave Moscow for home due to a traffic collapse. Buses are delayed by more than an hour. MSK1.RU reports on what is happening on this snowy Wednesday evening.
Queues of dozens of people have gathered at Medvedkovo metro station. Passengers are waiting to board buses heading to Mytishchi. At that time, there were traffic jams on Ostashkovskaya Street and at the intersection with the Moscow Ring Road.
Here, passengers for the bus to the Gorki Park residential complex have lined up in a single-file column. This queue formed near Domodedovskaya metro station.
Residents of Moscow«s eastern suburbs are also complaining about the queues. Buses from the capital to Balashikha and Reutov are taking a long time to arrive. According to an MSK1.RU subscriber, there are difficulties even on intracity routes in Balashikha.
Against this backdrop, taxi prices are multiplying. For example, a trip from Saltykovskaya platform to Enthusiasts Highway costs 2300 rubles (about $23 at current rates) for the «Economy» tariff, and a taxi from Novogireyevo metro station to nearby residential complexes in Reutov costs 1900 rubles (also «Economy»). Even unlicensed cabbies have raised their rates.
«Prices are sky-high; for that money, you could get from the center to home, not just from the nearest metro. Illegal taxi drivers near Novogireyevo are luring people from the queues. They usually charge 100-200 rubles (about $1-2) per passenger, but now it»s already 500 rubles (about $5),« explains an MSK1.RU reader.
According to data from the Moscow region«s Mostransavto, bus delays reach up to an hour and a half due to traffic jams and accidents. For instance, movement on Enthusiasts Highway is limited, and buses to Reutov are delayed by 100 minutes. In Balashikha (M-7, 20th kilometer), delay times reach 89 minutes, and on Shchelkovskoye Highway—up to 75 minutes.
The situation is slightly better on Kashirskoye Highway, where buses are delayed by an hour; on Novorizhskoye, delays are 70 minutes; in Krasnogorsk on Volokolamskoye and Ilyinskoye highways—up to 67 minutes. On other highways, delays are 30-45 minutes. The most difficult situation was on Domodedovskoye Highway, where there was no movement at all, and buses simply stood for more than 1.5 hours.
It«s not easy to get around in Moscow either. Since Moscow buses allow entry through all doors, passengers do not form queues. Video was shot near Filatov Lug metro station in TiNAO.
Amid local closures and bad weather, Moscow has experienced ten-point traffic jams for the first time this year. How the capital is enduring the snow collapse—in MSK1.RU«s online broadcast.
