You think we have infrastructure problems…Moscow ground to a halt today as traffic jams blocked 500 kilometers (310 miles) of roads leading into the city center.
“Traffic jams paralyzed practically all the major arteries of the capital on Tuesday morning,” state broadcaster Vesti-24 reported. “The overall length of traffic jams in the capital at 9:45 a.m. exceeds 500 kilometers.”
Moscow and the surrounding region lose 400 billion rubles ($15 billion) a year, or 6 percent of the area’s gross regional product, because of added transport costs and shipping delays, Transport Minister Igor Levitin said on Oct. 1. Moscow’s network lacks up to 400 kilometers of roads, resulting in an average of 650 traffic jams every day, he said.