Route M10: useful information

Federal highway "Russia", called Muscovites Leningrad, a road that connects the two capitals and has a strategic importance - all this is the M10.

What happened before and what awaits motorists in the future

The history of the highway began even before the construction of St. Petersburg. Its segment connected Moscow and Novgorod with a call to Tver. Today, such distances can be overcome by car or bus in just a few hours, and in the distant sixteenth century it took several days. Of course, such a trip could not be made without stopping for the night, so populated areas (post stations) appeared along the road. One of them is Valdai.

The M10 track connected Moscow and St. Petersburg in the second half of the eighteenth century, the construction was carried out according to the decree of Peter I. In part, it repeated the route of an artificially created waterway laid from the Tver region to the Baltic Sea, providing the needs of the actively developing northern capital with food and other necessary goods.

Of course, the newly opened M10, although at that time it did not have such a name, was a breakthrough in domestic road construction. Not surprisingly, it has become one of the main transport routes connecting central Russia with its north-western part. Such a status it has not lost even today, despite the fact that there are many questions about its technical state.

It is noteworthy that the length of the road has since declined by seventy-two kilometers and today is 706 kilometers. The highway, in addition to the two regions where the final destinations are located, runs through the territory of Novgorod and Tver province.

During the Soviet era, the M10 track received asphalt covering, which is periodically repaired, but, alas, this is not enough, because it shows an urgent reconstruction. The authorities promise that by 2018 the situation will radically change, although this is not the first time, designated as the end date for the modernization of the road.

Nevertheless, the work is under way, and there is a hope that in the not too distant future, travelers will see a new highway, corresponding to the level of the federal highway.

M10 - a route of difficulties

If you look at the map of the road, you can see that it passes through the plain, but despite this, on its extent there are several sites with dangerous bends, steep slopes and ascent.

Everything would be fine, but when such unpleasant parts of the road are supplemented by the terrible quality of the roadway, the absence of overtaking and dividing bands, conditions are created when it is necessary to move very carefully around it, otherwise it is fraught with serious consequences.

As already described above, historically, the road passes through a large number of settlements. In the distant past, this was an indubitable plus: the opportunity to find a lodging for the night and a hot dinner during a long day trip. In modern conditions, this creates additional difficulties for motorists, who have to lose a lot of time to overcome these areas. Local inhabitants of the round-the-clock flow of cars, including freight, pleasure also delivers a little.

And, of course, the towns and villages on the way create additional difficulties during the design and reconstruction: the road needs to be expanded, and it is impossible to do this, as around the houses located very close to the road. Forced construction of detours significantly increases the construction time, its cost is growing.

Sufficiently long sections of the route have three lanes: one in each direction and one for two additional for overtaking. Belonging to the middle row is changing fast enough, sometimes you can not make a maneuver and already be on a collision. This is one of the reasons for the numerous accidents on this route.

All the difficulties described above become critical in conditions of a solid load on the track. A huge flow of cargo and passenger transport daily moves along this route.

M10 - reviews

Driving along this highway is not a pleasure for the faint-hearted, but for inexperienced drivers to navigate through it will be quite uncomfortable.

Departing from Moscow to St. Petersburg, you need to be prepared for the fact that you can spend several hours traveling outside the city, standing in a traffic jam on the Leningrad Highway in the MKAD area and further in Khimki. The numerous traffic lights of Solnechnogorsk will also take a decent amount of time. Therefore, going to the northern capital, it is necessary to leave as early as possible in the morning.

When you leave St. Petersburg, traffic jams are usually not observed, but you need to try to calculate the time so that the entrance to Moscow does not coincide with the peak hours, as the situation on the Leningrad highway towards the center of the capital is also quite tense.