On September 8, traffic began along the third start-up complex of the Yekaterinburg Ring Road, known locally as EKAD. A new 11.4-kilometer segment opened, stretching from the Solnechny residential area on the Polevskiy Trakt to the Chelyabinsk Trakt. This milestone marks a significant step in completing a continuous transport ring around Yekaterinburg, enabling smoother movement for both local residents and through-traffic. As work progresses, engineers and municipal planners are outlining the steps needed to finish the remaining sections and to ready nearby technical networks and plots for future development.
During the next construction season, specialists are expected to finalize the reconstruction of technical networks and the registration of plots, with commissioning anticipated in the late autumn period. This schedule aligns with ongoing efforts to integrate more of EKAD into the regional transport system while ensuring safety standards and efficient traffic management across the urban ring.
The event was attended by the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Ural Federal District, Vladimir Yakushev, along with the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Evgeny Kuyvashev. Kuyvashev emphasized the round-the-clock effort of the teams over the past weeks and months, noting that the essential exits from ECAD would be completed within the coming year. He underscored the core achievement: traffic is now circulating around the ring. The governor also signaled that work on expanding the northern half of EKAD would commence soon, signaling ongoing progress on the broader ring expansion and network optimization.
A multi-level interchange at the construction site provides a glimpse of the complexity involved. This view, captured last July, illustrates how modernizing the ring road integrates with surrounding urban infrastructure to improve flow and reduce congestion. The regional leadership highlighted that opening the third section effectively closes the transport loop around Yekaterinburg, achieving a major milestone two years ahead of the original schedule. Construction of the EKAD’s third start-up complex began in 2019 as part of Russia’s national project Safe High-Quality Roads, which aims to upgrade and expand critical highway corridors nationwide.
With this development, Yekaterinburg now sits within a continuous transport ring that better connects the city to regional corridors. EKAD is considered a cornerstone project for the Sverdlovsk region, linking the Perm Canal, the M-5 Ural Highway, the Yekaterinburg-Shadrinsk-Kurgan route, and the Tyumen Canal into a coherent transport framework. The ring is designed to relieve city streets by diverting long-distance transit traffic away from central areas, thereby improving mobility, safety, and delivery times for goods and services. To date, segments of EKAD totaling roughly 80 kilometers have already been constructed and brought into operation, demonstrating tangible progress toward the ring’s full realization.
The national project Safe High-Quality Roads forms a broader program with the aim of elevating the condition of urban road networks. Its objectives include raising the share of urban roads in good condition to 85 percent, a target pursued through repairs, reconstructions, and new constructions across Russia. As part of this initiative, more than 48,000 kilometers of roads have undergone improvements since the project’s inception, contributing to safer and more reliable travel. In addition, the project has supported public access to traffic updates through streaming platforms, enabling residents to monitor road conditions and plan routes in real time. These efforts are part of a coordinated approach to modernize transport infrastructure across major metropolitan areas. transportation authorities and national project summaries.
- Road improvements and new alignments have expanded the capacity and reliability of regional corridors, benefiting freight, commuting, and emergency services.
- Public access to travel information has increased, with new channels and formats providing up-to-date road conditions for drivers.