Town hall attacked with Molotov cocktails

[MeMyselfAndI]

Khimki battle turns violent
by Vladimir Kozlov at 29/07/2010 20:54

LOCALRSS
Rally in defense of Khimki forest
© RIA Novosti. Vladimir Fedorenko
Khimki battle turns violent
by Vladimir Kozlov at 29/07/2010 20:54


The battle to stop a highway being built through Khimki Forest turned violent on Wednesday as a crowd of youths wearing bandanas and ski masks attacked the Moscow suburb’s town hall with Molotov cocktails.


Police responded quickly by detaining 16 environmental activists camped out in the forest who claimed to be unconnected to the attack.


On Wednesday evening, between 100 and 500 youths – according to various reports – threw empty bottles and Molotov cocktails at the building, breaking windows, RIA Novosti reported. The youths shouted “No to cutting down Khimki Forest” and “No to destroying Russian forests”, and daubed graffiti on the building.


There were no police on the site and none of the attackers, who quickly took a commuter train from the nearby station, were detained.


Eco-activists arrested


At around the same time, activists protecting the forest – who vehemently denied any connection to the attack – returned to the woodland to protest the resumption of cutting down trees, Gazeta.ru reported. Police soon detained 16 activists, including Yevgenia Chirikova, head of the movement to protect Khimki Forest, she told the radio station Svoboda.

According to Chirikova, the activists were just sitting on tree stumps and talking to reporters when OMON arrived and began detaining people.


As of Thursday morning, several people still remained in police custody.


Meanwhile, Khimki residents are divided on whether the construction of a Moscow-St. Petersburg toll road through the woodland should be stopped.


“The trees shouldn’t be cut down”, said Anna, a young mother walking with a baby stroller in Khimki on Wednesday afternoon. “The construction should be stopped. It’s especially important for children that trees stay there.”


“I’m not sure,” said an elderly woman sitting on a bench next to an entrance to her apartment building. “On the one hand, it’s probably not very good that trees are being cut down. But I think since they are doing it, they must have all the necessary permits.”


“Even though I’m sorry for the woodland, the road is vital there,” a reader commented on Gazeta.ru’s web forum. “They should have protested against the construction of [huge shopping centres] and car showrooms.”


“Roads are no less useful than [forests],” added another forum user. “Highways help to decrease pollution resulting from cars tied in traffic jams. Khimki Forest is beautiful but the highway has to be built, otherwise we’ll suffocate.” He added that he would support an alternative site for the highway alongside the tracks of the Oktyabrskaya railway.


“Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work as an alternative,” another user responded. “In that case, the highway would pass through Khimki rather than the woods, in a small area… sandwiched between the Moscow Ring Road, Leningradskoye Shosse, the new highway and an industrial zone. I live in that area, by the way.”

http://www.mn.ru/local/20100729/187959801.html


I don't know... I understand the ecologists frustration. But, we need new highways and roads. The congestion and traffic jams in and around Moscow right now are unimaginable. The city will choke to death if there is no additional infrastructure built.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by MeMyselfAndI

http://www.mn.ru/local/20100729/187959801.html


I don't know... I understand the ecologists frustration. But, we need new highways and roads. The congestion and traffic jams in and around Moscow right now are unimaginable. The city will choke to death if there is no additional infrastructure built.

Yes, but unfortunately, that's not actually how traffic jams actually work. Basically, every theory about 'traffic flow' that has been used for most of the 20th century has turned out to be wrong. Unfortunately, most traffic and/or urban planners learned the 'old theory' and apply it religiously.

The problem is that the theory is wrong and you can't use 'common sense' to figure out traffic - it just doesn't work - it tends to make traffic worse, not better (which is why everyone has massive traffic jams all the time).

The one thing we know about traffic is "if you built it, they will come" - meaning that all available traffic capacity will be filled up - no matter how much additional traffic capacity you add, it will always be jammed up as fast as you can build it.

In other words, building additional highways just creates more traffic jams and has no 'reduction' effect on the present traffic jams.

It is very difficult to convince anyone of this new theory - even though there is lots of data to support it. The problem is that it is counter-intuitive - most people rely upon common sense to understand the problem and that is exactly what is causing the problem!

Oddly enough, if you want to fix the traffic jam problem, the name of the game is to tear down one or two highways feeding into Moscow. Like I said, it is very hard to convince people of this, but it is so.

If you want to make your traffic jams worse, build more highways.

Toronto's newly build 407 highway is one of the data points that supports the new theory. That highway runs parallel to the existing 401 highway (busiest highway in the world), just a short distance north of it - essentially increasing the highway 'capacity' here by about 35%. It took less than one year for that new highway to hit its maximum capacity. During that same period, traffic on the 401 highway increased by 6%. Now we have TWO highways running parallel to each other that are both jammed all the time (actually worse than before).

At the other end of the city (five years ago) we tore down about a quarter of the length of the "Lakeshore" expressway. Traffic has actually reduced over time. That highway has LESS traffic jams now.

[Michael]

Btw, in case anyone is curious, the first discovery of this 'weird' traffic theory comes from this event:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Lo...eta_earthquake

That's when a very large 'double-deck' highway in California collapsed in an earthquake (Interstate 880). This was one of the busiest highways in California at the time and was projected to be closed for two years to rebuild it. Conventional traffic theory predicted that any road running parallel to the highway route was going to have traffic jams from hell as all that traffic was diverted from the collapsed highway.

In reality, those predicted traffic jams never materialized. The two main parallel roadways gained only a couple percent increase in traffic and that was it.

Basically, some 90% of the traffic on that highway just 'evaporated' as quickly as the highway collapsed. No one knows why or how this happens, only that this is what happened.

Since then, there have been numerous examples of similar effects being documented. No one has been able to explain this yet.

[MeMyselfAndI]

Originally Posted by Michael

Btw, in case anyone is curious, the first discovery of this 'weird' traffic theory comes from this event:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Lo...eta_earthquake

That's when a very large 'double-deck' highway in California collapsed in an earthquake (Interstate 880). This was one of the busiest highways in California at the time and was projected to be closed for two years to rebuild it. Conventional traffic theory predicted that any road running parallel to the highway route was going to have traffic jams from hell as all that traffic was diverted from the collapsed highway.

In reality, those predicted traffic jams never materialized. The two main parallel roadways gained only a couple percent increase in traffic and that was it.

Basically, some 90% of the traffic on that highway just 'evaporated' as quickly as the highway collapsed. No one knows why or how this happens, only that this is what happened.

Since then, there have been numerous examples of similar effects being documented. No one has been able to explain this yet.

I don't know, man. This is what our traffic jams are like:


Though, really, it is just another symptom of the same illness the city is suffering. An unusual one for Russia, but... OVERPOPULATION.

Moscow Metro subway:


Trolleybus


Tram


Commuter train

(the woman in red with the device in hand is a 'Controler', they check tickets, if you don't have, they kick you off the train or make you pay fine or both)

it is crazy right now. Prisons are overpopulated on average 2.4 times in all of Russia. In Moscow - 2.6 getting closer to 3 now 1-web.jpg

This is why: we have crazy rates of migration into the city, thousands coming in everyday. At the same time the Mayor has encouraged higher birth rates, paying $10,000 more to Muskovite families for each second and subsequent child, on top of $10,000 in 'maternity capital' from Putin. Now, with death rates of 10/1000, Moscow has a birth rate of about 12/1000 (compared to 9 per 1000 five years ago) and 3 immigrants per 1000 people. That's just LEGAL IMMIGRANTS, btw. We have maybe 2,000,000 illegals too. Overall, the city and metro region population has grown from 10,000,000 (with illegals) in 1989 to 17,000,000 (with illegals) now. No joke.

I don't know what is going to happen... The city is not made of bloody rubber, infrastructure cannot keep up with this insane growth. This year, 30,000 children here will not be able to attend kindergarden, because not enough new ones will be built by September. That's just the start.