Tavrida track in Crimea: features, degree of readiness

When talking about Crimea over the past few years, many of our fellow citizens have in their heads an association with a significant construction project - the Crimean bridge, which connected the peninsula with the Krasnodar Territory. At the same time, not everyone outside the region knows that global construction does not end there, because now we also need a land section of the road. It is already under construction and received the name Tavrida, and for the locals it is no less important than the bridge.

Until 2014, the northern route remained the main route for people and goods to enter the peninsula. There, the entire infrastructure was established a long time ago, through the Perekop Isthmus, main roads and railways led to the conditional west, and across the bridge over the Sivash - the same routes in the conditional direction to the east, where the famous Moscow-Simferopol highway passed. It was the northern exits that were most relevant for the Crimea at all times of its history.

When this state became part of the Russian Empire, it closed the transport system on itself and built railways, which also went to the north by the shortest route. In the USSR and Ukraine, such logistics also looked the most justified - passenger traffic and cargo transportation were also carried out in this direction.

At all the times described, the main traffic flows were collected from different parts of the Crimea to Dzhankoy, and from there they were determined with a further direction - either to Kherson and further to the west and north-west, or to Zaporozhye and further to Kharkov, Moscow and other popular directions.

For this reason, a serious route was needed only from the northern edge of the peninsula to Simferopol - further the traffic flow was inevitably divided, and there were enough local roads. Direct communication with the Krasnodar Territory was carried out by means of a ferry, but this was far from the most successful option, because this direction was not too in demand.

To avoid the procedure of transit through another state, it was decided to build a bridge connecting the Kuban with the Crimea. It was opened in 2018, but in the end another problem was revealed - the main traffic flows were redirected not to Dzhankoy, but to Kerch, but there was no really serious route here - there was no such need.

The modern project on which the Tavrida highway is being implemented was ready in 2016, at that time the estimated cost of its implementation was estimated at 139 billion rubles. It is assumed that a part of the road will be built where there were no routes before, in other cases a major reconstruction of the existing tracks will be carried out. At the beginning of 2017, projects of individual sections of the new route passed the state examination, in May of the same year, the construction of a new facility was started.

It is assumed that the new route will run from the eastern Crimea to the southwest of the peninsula through its center. The end points are called Kerch, located directly at the exit from the Crimean bridge, and Sevastopol - a huge port and just one of the two largest cities on the entire peninsula. The route will pass through Simferopol, which is the main air gateway to the region and just another of the two largest cities, as well as many smaller cities - for example, Feodosia, Belogorsk and Bakhchisarai.

For convenience, the entire length of the track has been divided into eight sections or stages, which can be commissioned, not necessarily in the order in which they were numbered.

1. It has a duration of 71 kilometers. It is located closest to the Crimean bridge, starting at the junction at the exit from it and ending near the village of Primorsky. This is one of the most important parts of the track, as it is practically no alternative route. Such a road existed before, but it will be widened by adding two new lanes.
2. Stretched out for 50 kilometers, it runs from the village of Primorskiy to the village of Lgovskoye, where it connects with the road to the regional center Belogorsk. This is a new direction - there was no road here before.
3. Duration 36 kilometers is a reconstruction of an old road. It can be used to drive from the village of Lgovskoe to the outskirts of Belogorsk, where there is an exit to the old highway connecting Simferopol and Feodosia.
4. Passes through Zuya and Trudovoye similar to the existing route, reaching the Simferopol bypass. This section of the road is 28 kilometers long.
5. It is a Simferopol bypass highway, which goes around the Crimean capital from the north and west. It runs from the current direction to Feodosia to the current direction to Bakhchisarai and Sevastopol. The length of the bypass is almost 25 kilometers.
6. The plot is the last, which runs through the territory of Crimea as a republic.It stretches from the exit from the Simferopol bypass (near the village of Levadki), duplicating the existing road, to the place where the Bakhchisarai district borders on Sevastopol. This section of the route is 29 kilometers long.
7. Runs through the outskirts of Sevastopol as a city. It starts from the border with the republican Crimea and reaches the junction with the so-called presidential road from Sevastopol to Inkerman. This segment is relatively short, its length is just over 13 kilometers.
8. The last segment is also the shortest - it stretched only 6 kilometers. It involves the reconstruction of the aforementioned presidential road up to the Yalta ring. Despite its short length, this is a very difficult and expensive piece of the road - it is located in an area with a developed road network, therefore additional construction of interchanges, overpasses and a bridge is required.

Most of the current routes were laid several decades ago, when the traffic congestion was less, and too little attention was paid to the needs of the common man compared to the state needs. Some aspects of the new Tavrida circuit make us talk about it as a modern engineering project, which is made following the example of the best German autobahns. Let's take a look at the key aspects of a completed freeway.

• The length of the road is almost 251 kilometers... On a Russian scale, this, of course, is not the most impressive project, but for Crimea it is a contender for the title of construction site of the century, because the route crosses the peninsula from end to end.
• Estimated load - up to 39-40 thousand vehicles per day. For Crimea, with its three million population, this is already very impressive, because not every Crimean will travel along the road every day, especially since it does not pass near a number of large settlements in the region.
• The maximum permissible weight of a passing vehicle is 70 tons. It is assumed that any heavy-duty trucks can drive around Tavrida, because if they do not pass here, then they have nothing to do in Crimea at all. The asphalt concrete pavement is made with a margin of safety in order to allow the development of all sectors of the economy on the peninsula that are tied to road transport.
• Permitted travel speed - 120 km / h. In this regard, Tavrida threatens to become a unique object on the scale of the post-Soviet space, because full-fledged autobahns, where there would be practically no speed limit, until it really appeared.
• Road width - 4 lanes, two in each direction, separated by bumpers... Such characteristics are necessary to ensure the passage of the declared 40 thousand cars per day. Fenders prevent vehicles that have lost control from entering the oncoming lane, due to which the number of fatal accidents at high speeds should be reduced.
• Bypassing settlements. The important highway will not pass through any city, which allows maintaining a consistently high speed of traffic and relieves local residents from constant noise.
• Lack of intersections and traffic lights. The road is designed so that the fast movement of cars is not impeded by anything. The project envisages the construction of more than two hundred road objects to help avoid the formation of an intersection - these are transport interchanges, overpasses and bridges. The interests of local residents have been taken into account - separate overpasses will be created for agricultural machinery. Although the road does not pass through settlements, the need to cross it on foot is still possible in some places - for this, special overhead crossings will be built.
• Expansion of bus stations - in Kerch and Feodosia. With the launch of the Crimean bridge and the commissioning of the Tavrida highway, a significant increase in passenger traffic in the new direction is expected.Simferopol and Sevastopol have a fairly well-developed infrastructure, most of the smaller cities do not need to expand it - long-distance communication will not directly affect them. It is planned to make large transit hubs from Kerch and Feodosia, which will be able to receive long-distance buses.
• Commissioning of all sites - 2020. The impressiveness of the facility is evidenced by the fact that its construction takes three years.

The legislation provides for a norm according to which capital construction is not allowed on a site where archaeological research has not previously been carried out. Already, so many finds have gathered that some experts suggest opening a special museum upon completion of construction, which will be dedicated to everything that was found in the process of laying the route. The portfolio of archaeological finds includes the following finds:

• a kilometer-long karst cave near Zuya with the remains of prehistoric animals - they promised to preserve this place and organize a scientific center on its basis;
• the ruins of a military camp dating from the times of the Crimean War (1853-1855) - near Sevastopol;
• a marble statue in which the ancient Greek god Apollo is guessed - at the settlement of Mirkemiy;
• a Scythian war burial, which even managed to date to the middle of the 4th century BC thanks to an amphora - in the depths of the Sary-Su mound.

As mentioned above, the completion date for the entire facility as a whole is scheduled for 2020. Whether the track will actually be built by that time or not, it is impossible to say for sure, because unforeseen delays are possible in any situation, and even more so in our conditions. While construction is progressing according to plan, there have been no significant delays in the deadline.

At the same time, it makes no sense to wait until the entire highway is opened - at least, you can drive from Kerch to Sevastopol today, even if the route is slightly different from what is planned. In addition, the construction of individual stages is proceeding unevenly, and at first glance it is illogical - some parts in the middle of the route are officially open now, they will no longer be completed or improved. This is because it was impossible to start construction directly from the Kerch bridge until it was put into operation, since when leaving it, there should have been a site for the passage of special heavy equipment.

The second and third stages of the Tavrida highway were officially commissioned on the penultimate day of 2018 - the facility was fully completed in the section from the village of Batalny to Belogorsk. In February 2019, a nine-kilometer piece of the new Simferopol bypass was also opened - it connected the villages of Levadki and Dubki, passing from the highway to Bakhchisarai and Sevastopol to the highway to Nikolaevka.

The construction of the highway on the territory of Sevastopol is perhaps the most delayed - although there are only two sections with a total length of 20 kilometers, the timing of their completion is still unclear. In December 2018, a project was only ordered for the eighth stage, which means that it has not yet acquired its final form, even on paper.

You will learn about when the Tavrida track will open in Crimea from the video below.