The curse of capitalism.

last updated 8 January 2015

Cars

Marie Jego

There was at least one good thing about the Soviet era: No traffic, said Marie Jego in the London Guardian. Back then, few Russians could afford cars, and those who could had to wait for years for a shoddy Zhiguli to creak off the assembly line. Now that Russia has a free market and a new wealthy class, the streets are literally clogged with cars. Road building has not kept pace with car buying, and the result is gridlock in Moscow. Conditions outside the city are even worse. “There are no visible speed limits, and few comply with signs for one-way streets, traffic lights, and pedestrian crossings.” Each day about 100 people are killed in car accidents on Russian roads: the highest rate in the world. Russians zoom as fast as possible and expect slower cars to move out of the way. It’s gotten so bad that even the notoriously un-civic-minded Russians have banded together to form the Free Choice Motorists’ Movement, an AAA-like group that lobbies for traffic enforcement. For now, all that’s planned is yet another “ring road around Moscow.”