Cold War: Moscow's Mayor in a Flurry Over Snowfall

The centre of Moscow is overloaded by commercial offices and jammed by cars. Additional difficulties in winter are caused by snow, ice-covered ground and brown slash coming from thawing snow and salt mixtures strewn in the streets to lower the freezing point. It helps to cut down the cost of clearing the roads by snow-removal, which is associated with noise, fuel consumption and air pollution. Street cleaning is complicated by notorious inability of the Traffic Police (GIBDD) to maintain order, particularly in regard to the parking, to remove the cars standing around in the city centre weeks or months on end, often violating the Traffic Code. An example: massive parking of the commuters' and other cars, day and night, before the apartment house Klimentovski per. 6 (near metro Novokuznetskaya) in spite of the "No Entry" signs. The best way out of the traffic gridlock in the capital, apart from the bicentric concept proposed for the General Layout of Moscow, must be elevation of the vehicle tax, which is comparatively very low in Russia. Necessity of the tax elevation becomes increasingly evident during the last decade because of the growing number of big cross-country vehicles used in the city from considerations of prestige S. Jargin (Moscow).

S. Jargin 2:38PM December 09, 2009