St Petersburg wins instead of Kazan in High Speed Rail plan

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 17 Apr 2019 by Alex Teddy
President Putin has signed off on a plan to improve High Speed Rail (HSR) between Moscow and St Petersburg. The plan for the HSR from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and then to Kazan has been aborted. Putin wants to upgrade HSR between Moscow and St Petersburg which is his native city. Lack of resources force him to axe the Kazan HSR in order to achieve a higher priority. The Governor of St Petersburg faces an election in September. This election will not be easy for the ruling United Russia Party. St Petersburg is already well served by transport. The minor Russian cities complain that Moscow and St Petersburg are already privileged and other cities are forgotten. St Petersburg HSR will probably take more than 5 years and cost at least USD 18 billion. Sapsan trains St Petersburg are already excellent and could go faster with a track upgrade rather than switching to HSR. HSR to Nizhny Novgorod would have cost at least USD 10 billion. Improving transport infrastructure is a key part of the president's national projects which he unveiled in May 2018. As we said these before these are overambitious and too numerous. Little progress has been made on them and costs seem to have been underestimated. The projects are being scaled back. Some will probably be abandoned. A lot has already been spent on Kazan HSR and that now seems to have been wasted.

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