Moscow-St Petersburg Motorway; Khimki Forest Controversy

[Grzrd]

Two things about this story caught my attention:

(1) Being a NIMBY in Russia takes courage because you can literally be risking your life.  One activist opposed to construction of the new Moscow-St. Petersburg motorway through the Khimki Forest outside of Moscow was attacked outside his home and left for dead.  He now has permanent brain damage and is confined to a wheelchair;

(2) It costs approximately $237 million/km to build a road in Russia (compared to $6 million/km in US for a comparable road).  Hmmmm...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-an-activist-shouts-in-the-forest-will-anyone-hear-her/2011/03/25/AF4PtQYB_story.html

[Truvelo]

Over here there was "Swampy" who built tunnels and tree houses in the path of new roads to stop them being built. It delayed construction but the roads were eventually built when he was evicted.

[Chris]

The $ 237 million/km claim sounds highly implausible... It's more likely 4 - 8 million in rural areas and 20 - 30 million in urban areas.

Khimki forest is on the outskirts of Moscow by the way, and not just some rural forest like they have thousands of square miles of in Russia.

[oscar]

The $ 237 million/km claim sounds highly implausible... It's more likely 4 - 8 million in rural areas and 20 - 30 million in urban areas.

I think the assumption was that the $237M/km cost was heavily "padded" due to corruption.

But whatever the average non-corrupt construction cost is/ought to be in Russia, $237M/km is not wildly implausible over here.  Indeed, the just-opened CA 52 six-lane freeway extension near San Diego came in around $100M/km (including ROW acquisition).

[The Premier]

(1) Being a NIMBY in Russia takes courage because you can literally be risking your life.  One activist opposed to construction of the new Moscow-St. Petersburg motorway through the Khimki Forest outside of Moscow was attacked outside his home and left for dead.  He now has permanent brain damage and is confined to a wheelchair.

That's just wicked. If something like that occurred like what happened in Russia, you can bet there will be an alarming amount of lawsuits. Yikes!