16:59 Easing Traffic, Building Financial Hub To Follow From Moscow's Expansion | |
 Looking to solve Moscow's traffic woes, appease its motorists and build the infrastructure for its "global financial center" from scratch, the country's highest officials have announced a plan to stretch the city's southwest boundaries. Currently, the plan also incorporates a separate bubble of land farther north, near the prime minister's residence, which could be used as the site of his offices and could shorten his commute. The purpose of the expansion plan, as explained by federal and city leaders, is to relocate federal government offices from central Moscow to this new section of the city and to construct a hub of financial offices there. Those changes would complement earlier promises by top officials: Since 2008, Medvedev has been pledging to turn Moscow into a global financial center, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin pledged in October 2010 to ease the capital's hideous traffic congestion. That potentially could happen if government workers commute to outskirts rather than downtown. "Creating the Capital Federal District, which would stretch beyond the "traditional boundaries of Moscow," would "improve the development of the Moscow megapolis for the purposes of establishing a financial center and simply ease lives of a huge number of people," Medvedev said in his keynote speech at the St. Petersburg forum. Under the plan, the city's boundaries would be stretched from its southwest section, pulled diagonally south to touch the Kaluga region. In addition, there will be an exclave next to the Uspenskoye district near the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse, sources in the mayor's office told Vedomosti in August. That area is home to the prime minister, president and other notables. A City Hall official confirmed to Vedomosti that there is an interest in relocating government offices to that land. According to a draft plan released by Sobyanin and Moscow Governor Boris Gromov this summer, the overall area of the city of Moscow will grow almost 2 1/2 times and cover 251,000 hectares, compared with 107,000 hectares today. City Hall estimated in a statement that 60 million square meters of housing and 45 million square meters of office space could be built on the territory, which currently has 12 million square meters of developed area. (Vedomosti, The Moscow Times) | |
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