Maxim Sokolov, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, visits the construction site of the WHSD project

The visit took place on May 4 in presence of Kirill Polyakov, General Director of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Directorate for Transport System Development, Sergey Kharlashkin, Chairman of St. Petersburg Transport Infrastructure Development Committee, Yury Molchanov, Senior Vice-President of VTB Bank, Alexei Zhurbin, General Director of Stroyproekt and senior managers of the companies involved into the project financing and construction.
 
Maxim Sokolov lifted to a 125m-high pylon of the cable-stayed bridge over the Korabelny Fairway under construction to inspect on-going works of the final erection stage. By now all piers for the highway central section, which consists of engineering structures for 100%, have been built. At most areas the erection of deck steelwork is almost over; now the carriageway slab concreting, asphalt paving, cabling and lighting system installation are in progress. In general the project has been completed for over 87%.  
 
Apart of construction issues, the Minister also discussed the experience of toll operation of the WHSD Northern and Southern Sections.  He got especially interested with the achieved rate of electronic toll collection. Currently over half of drivers use transponders; this helps to avoid delays at toll plazas in spite of the fact that about 4 million trips are made every month.

Summarizing the inspection results, Mr. Sokolov expressed his hope that the Project will be completed on time.

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Related projects

Western High Speed Diameter (WHSD) WHSD is the first urban toll expressway in St. Petersburg, 46.6 km in length, which comprises a great number of complex engineering structures. The road links the southern and western city districts with the Ring Road, Vasilievsky Island in the center and the Scandinavia highway in the north, and has improved accessibility of the main transport hubs — Pulkovo Airport, the port of St. Petersburg and the Marine Façade passenger terminal. The new expressway has reduced travel times in some city areas by 50-70%.