President Vladimir Putin attended on Wednesday the ceremony of the opening of a cable-stayed bridge across the Neva River.

This is the ninth bridge within the boundaries of the city and the first non-opening bridge, under which ships of any tonnage may pass. It is located in the Nevsky District of the city, in the medium reaches of the Neva. The bridge is 2.8 kilometres long. The length of the largest span is 382 metres. The bridge is an important element of the circular highway, which is being built around St.Petersburg.

Some 120,000 automobiles a day will be able to pass by eight traffic lanes of the bridge. Transit traffic by the bridge will permit to reduce traffic in the streets of St.Petersburg and to connect by a high-speed route three highways of federal importance: the St.Petersburg-Murmansk highway (Kola), the highway connecting St.Petersburg and the Finnish border (Scandinavia) and the Moscow-St.Petersburg highway (Russia).

Russian Minister of Transport Igor Levitin said that, according to the estimates of specialists, the new cable-stayed bridge would be used for about 100 years. According to his information, the building of several more bridges – in the Tver Region, Murmansk, Yaroslavl and Kazan – is planned to be started in 2005, but the building of more cable-stayed bridges is not planned.

Yegor Tratnikov, head of the project, said the bridge accounted for 20 per cent of the money to be spent on the building of the circular highway around St.Petersburg.

Ilya Klebanov, official representative of the President in the North-Western Region, and St.Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko attended the ceremony.

News source: www.itar-tass.com
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