The bypass highway M53 Baikal around Irkutsk is planned to be completed by November 2010, said Sergey Sokol. The new two lane road, nearly 24 kilometers long, should ease city roads, improve the environment, and be ready at the same time as the launch of the Amur highway section. The project costs 2.6 billion rubles, and about 500 people are working on the construction.
The M53 “Baikal” bypass road around Irkutsk will be completed by November 2010, said Sergei Sokol, acting governor of the Angara region.“The ‘Baikal’ bypass road is a very large-scale project. It is extremely important not only for the Irkutsk Region, but for the entire transport system of Siberia and the Far East. The thing is that in 2010 it is planned to open the Chita-Khabarovsk section of the Amur highway, which will increase traffic flow, and if this out-of-town traffic goes through the roads of Irkutsk, the city will no longer be able to cope. Therefore, it is very important to complete the construction of the bypass road on time - on schedule and in sync with the commissioning of the Amur highway,” Sokol said.
He explained that the bypass road will be a two-lane highway almost 24 kilometers long with a roadway width of 15 meters.
“The total cost of the road is 2.6 billion rubles. About 500 people are employed on the construction work,” the acting governor of the Irkutsk Region noted.
Sokol added that the new highway will also improve the environmental situation in the regional center, and heavy trucks will not destroy the asphalt on the city’s main roads.