The reason for the introduction of sections with left-hand traffic on several streets of Vladivostok was not at all the abundance of Japanese cars with a steering wheel located on the right. Although this is the conclusion that suggests itself in the first place - more than one hundred thousand Japanese cars have already been imported to Russia through the city this year alone. However, in this case, the reason for such a decision was given by the commissioning of a new bridge.
The bridge across the Golden Horn was opened on August 11, 2012. This is a very beautiful structure, included in the five longest bridges on the planet - the length of its main span is 737 meters. The six-row carriageway is almost 30 meters wide and is held in the upper part by fans of cables - shrouds, fixed on four masts of two pylons. The appearance of such a powerful additional artery in the urban transport scheme required changes to it. As a result, one-way traffic was established on some streets of the central part of the city, and on two - Semenovskaya and Mordovtsev - single-lane lanes for left-hand traffic appeared.
It is not yet necessary to talk about the introduction in Vladivostok of the standard adopted in Japan and England - the total length of sections with left-hand traffic, according to the mayor of the city Igor Pushkarev, is only 50 meters. In addition, only buses can move along them, and for the rest of the transport, entry to the left-hand lanes is prohibited. According to the experts who have developed such a traffic scheme, it will allow avoiding the intersection of traffic flows and somewhat reduce traffic.
However, even 50 meters of left-hand traffic are actively opposed by the police responsible for safety on city roads - the UGIBDD of the region sent a request to the mayor's office to cancel the corresponding decree. The police refer to an article in the federal law "On road safety", therefore, the prosecutor's office of the Primorsky Territory also joined in the verification of the legality of the actions of the mayor's office in this matter. It is possible that the appearance of even such a scanty "wrong" site in the city, where the vast majority of private vehicles are designed specifically for left-hand traffic, will turn out to be a very short-lived phenomenon.
