The route of Tavrida in Crimea: features, degree of readiness

When the conversation about the Crimea of ​​the last few years comes, many of our fellow citizens have an association with a significant construction project - the Crimean Bridge, which connected the peninsula with the Krasnodar Territory. At the same time, not everyone knows outside the region 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 of Taurida, and for the local it has no less importance than the bridge.

Until 2014, the northern route remained the main route for people and goods to reach the peninsula. There, the entire infrastructure was established a long time ago, through the Perekopsky Isthmus the main roads and railways led to the conventional west, and through the bridge over the Sivash - the same routes in the conventional direction to the east, where the famous Moscow – Simferopol highway passed. That northern trips were the 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 northward along the shortest route. In the USSR and Ukraine, such logistics also seemed to be the most justified - the passenger and freight traffic also proceeded precisely in this direction.

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

For this reason, a serious route was needed only from the northern edge of the peninsula to Simferopol - further the stream of transport was inevitably divided, and there were enough local roads. Direct connection with the Krasnodar Territory via the ferry, but this was by no means the most successful option, because this direction was not very much in demand.

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

The modern project, which implements the Tavrida highway, 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 existing paths will be carried out. At the beginning of 2017, the projects of separate sections of the new highway passed the state expertise, in May of the same year, the beginning of the construction of a new facility.

It is assumed that the new route will pass from the eastern Crimea to the south-west of the peninsula through its center.The final points are Kerch, located directly at the exit from the Crimean Bridge, and Sevastopol is a huge port and just one of the two largest cities of the entire peninsula. The route will pass through Simferopol, which is the main air gate of the region and just another of the two largest cities, as well as many smaller cities - for example, Theodosia, Belogorsk and Bakhchisarai.

For convenience, the entire length of the route was divided into eight sections or stages that can be put into operation, not necessarily in the order in which they were numbered.

1. It has a length of 71 kilometers. It is located closest to the Crimean bridge, starting at the junction when leaving it and ending near the village of Primorsky. This is one of the most important parts of the route, because it is almost no alternative route. Such a road existed before, but it will expand, adding two new lanes.
2. Stretched for 50 kilometers, it runs from the village of Primorsky to the village of Lgovskoye, where it connects with the road to the regional center Belogorsk. This is a new direction - there used to be no road here.
3. Duration 36 kilometers is a reconstruction of the old road. By it you can get from the village of Lgovskoye to the outskirts of Belogorsk, where there is access to the old highway connecting Simferopol and Feodosia.
4. It passes through Zuya and Labor similar to the existing route, reaching the Simferopol bypass. This fragment of the road has a length of 28 kilometers.
5. It is a Simferopol bypass route, 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 lastrunning through the territory of Crimea as a republic. It stretches from the departure from the Simferopol bypass (near the village of Levadki), duplicating the existing road, to the place where the Bakhchisarai district borders on Sevastopol. This segment of the path has a length of 29 kilometers.
7. It runs along the outskirts of Sevastopol as a city. It starts from the border with the republican Crimea and comes to 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 at the same time is the shortest - it stretched only for 6 kilometers. It involves the reconstruction of the above-mentioned presidential road right up to the Yalta ring. Despite the small length, this is a very difficult and expensive piece of the road - it is located in an area with a developed road network, so additional construction of interchanges, overpasses and a bridge is required.

Most of the current routes were laid several decades ago, when the congestion was less congested, and too little attention was paid to the needs of the common man compared to government needs. Some aspects of the Taurida highway make it necessary to speak of it as a modern engineering project, which was made following the example of the best German autobahns. Consider the key aspects of the finished highway.

• The length of the road - almost 251 km. On the scale of Russia, this, of course, is not the most impressive project, but for the Crimea it is a contender for the title of the construction of the century, because the route crosses the peninsula from end to end.
• Estimated load - up to 39-40 thousand cars daily. For the Crimea, with its three million population, this is already quite impressive, because not every Crimean will drive on the road every day, especially since it does not pass near a number of large settlements of the region.
• The maximum allowable weight of passing vehicles is 70 tons. It is assumed that any heavy trucks can drive around Tavrida, because if they do not drive through here, then they generally have nothing to do in the Crimea. Asphalt concrete pavement is made with a margin of safety in order to allow developing on the peninsula all branches of the economy tied to road transport.
• Permitted speed of movement - 120 km / h. In this regard, Tavrida threatens to become a unique object on the scale of the post-Soviet space, for there are practically no high-grade autobahns where the speed limit would be practically absent until it really appeared.
• The width of the road is 4 lanes, two in each direction, separated by bump stops. Such characteristics are necessary to ensure the passage of the declared 40 thousand cars per day. The bump stops do not allow transport, lost control, go into the oncoming lane, so that the number of fatal accidents at high speeds should decrease.
• Detour settlements. An important route will not pass through any city, which allows maintaining a stable high speed of traffic and eliminates the locals from constant noise.
• Lack of intersections and traffic lights. The road is designed so that the rapid movement of cars, nothing obstructed. The project plans to build more than two hundred road facilities to help avoid the formation of a crossroads - these are traffic intersections, overpasses and bridges. Interests of local residents are taken into account - separate overpasses will be created for agricultural equipment. Although the road does not pass through settlements, the need for its foot crossing is still possible in some places - for this purpose, special overpasses will be built.
• Expansion of bus stations - in Kerch and Feodosia. With the launch of the Crimean Bridge and the commissioning of the Taurida highway, a significant increase in passenger traffic is expected in a new direction. Simferopol and Sevastopol have a fairly well-developed infrastructure, most of the smaller cities do not need to expand it - a distant message 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.
• The commissioning of all sites - 2020. About the impressiveness of the object says at least the fact that its construction takes three years.

Legislation provides for a norm according to which capital construction is not allowed on a site where archaeological research has not been previously conducted. Already, so many finds have gathered that some experts suggest opening a special museum at the end of construction, which will be dedicated to all that was found in the course of laying the route. The archaeological finds portfolio includes the following finds:

• a kilometer-long karst cave near Zui with the remains of prehistoric animals - this place was promised to be preserved and organized at its base a scientific center;
• the ruins of a military camp dated by the times of the Crimean War (1853–1855) - near Sevastopol;
• marble statue, in which the ancient Greek god Apollo is guessed - at the site of ancient settlement Mirkemii;
• Scythian war graves, which even managed to date to the middle of the IV century BC thanks to amphorae - in the depths of the Sary-Su kurgan.

As mentioned above, deadlines for the entire facility as a whole are planned for 2020. Whether the track will actually be built by that time or not cannot be said for sure, since unforeseen delays are possible in any situation, and in our conditions even more so. While construction is progressing as planned, there were no significant disruptions.

It does not make sense to wait until the entire route is opened - at least, you can drive from Kerch to Sevastopol today, even if the route is somewhat different from what is planned.In addition, the construction of individual stages is uneven, and at first glance it is illogical - some pieces in the middle of the route are officially open now, they will no longer be completed or improved. This happens for the reason that it was impossible to start construction directly from the Kerch bridge until it was put into operation, since when leaving it there had to be a platform for moving special heavy equipment.

The second and third stages of the Tavrida highway were officially put into operation 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 also opened - he connected the village of Levadki and Dubki, passing from the highway to Bakhchisarai and Sevastopol to the highway to Nikolayevka.

The construction of the highway on the territory of Sevastopol is almost the most demanding - although there are only two segments with a total length of 20 kilometers, the deadlines for their delivery are still unclear. In December 2018, they only ordered a project for the eighth stage, which means that it has not yet acquired its final form on paper.

You will learn about the opening of the Tavrida highway in the Crimea from the video below.