Tatarstan road fund to be replenished with lorries’ fines
The Tatarstan State Council was introduced a bill adopting changes in the republic’s Budget Code. According to the document, income of the local budget from big transport vehicles’ traffic fines can become one of the sources of the region’s Road Fund from next year. It is offered that from 1 January 2024 the fund will be transferred money from the republican budget as compensation for the damage done by heavy vehicles to regional or municipal roads. Tatarstan State Council deputy Leonid Yakunin launched the initiative.
As it is explained in an explanatory note, the changes will be made to Article 55 of the Budget Code.
It should be reminded that in late the State Road Inspection of Kazan together with power representatives of administration of Vakhitovsky and Privolzhsky Districts carried out a raid to detect people transporting loose cargo without a tent that keeps roads clean.
During the raid, 10 warnings were issued against lorry drivers: eight of them for violating heavy and (or) large transport vehicle rules, another two for damaging roads, railways crossings or other road facilities.
The Traffic Police of Kazan paid attention to the fact that drivers of lorries transporting bulk cargo must use a tent. Stone, pebble, expanded clay and round stone, soil and turf, fertilisers and coal — all similar freight is prohibited for transportation in an open trailer or cabin.
It should be reminded that since autumn 2020 Kazan citizens have started to notice cargo vehicles in the city centre more often. Car owners are indignant because large transport vehicles accelerate road destruction, pollute the environment, undermine the noise level for residents of road side blocks of flats and impedes passenger and public transport from passing by. The city administration recognised the problem in 2021 claiming that in winter large vehicles worsened the already tough transport situation in the city centre by periodically provoking serious traffic jams and being involved in big traffic accidents. Since the same 2021, as the republic’s Traffic Police notes, nobody has been afraid of fines.