Vitebsk may get a ring road

August 20, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The "Roads of Vitebsk City" program is being developed in the regional center and will be submitted for approval by the city council deputies by November, the housing and communal services department of the Vitebsk City Executive Committee informed a BELTA correspondent. The need to create such a program is due to traffic congestion problems, which citizens are increasingly facing, and the expansion of the city limits with the construction of new residential areas. In accordance with the General Plan for the City Development, a promising direction for improving traffic flow could be the creation of a ring road that would connect areas where both multi-apartment and individual housing construction will be carried out. The main directions for the development of the main street network of the regional center at the first stage will be the formation of a city-wide highway in the northwestern direction with a bridge crossing over the Western Dvina and the reconstruction of the Polotsk overpass; the continuation of the reconstruction of Gagarin Street, where tram tracks will remain, and traffic will become three-lane. To improve pedestrian traffic safety and increase the capacity of the highways, the construction of underground pedestrian crossings at four intersections is necessary. As noted in the housing and communal services department of the city executive committee, the route network of urban electric transport lags behind the development of the city's infrastructure. In this regard, the creation of several new trolleybus routes is being considered, the first of which will open by December of this year. The Vitebsk City Executive Committee, as the customer of city transportation, has concluded agreements with UKTP "Vitebsk Tram and Trolleybus Administration", the branch "Bus Park No. 1 of Vitebsk", 20 individual entrepreneurs and 30 non-state enterprises. The urban route network currently includes 8 trolleybus routes, 9 tram routes, 46 regular bus routes, 5 express bus routes, and 34 express regular bus routes. -0-