The state-owned company Avtodor, which manages toll roads, announced the introduction of another toll section on the M-4 highway, which connects the center of the country with the Black Sea resorts and other southern regions. This section is located between Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar. In total, travel along the entire highway from Moscow to the sea (this is essentially the only road from central Russia towards Sochi, Gelendzhik, Anapa, and Crimea) will be approximately 250 rubles more expensive than last year, reports Travel.ru's own correspondent.
The new toll section (km 1195-1319) is located between Pavlovskaya and the Krasnodar bypass. It will open on April 29. The toll plaza is located at kilometer 1223 between Pavlovskaya and Korenovsk (drivers who don't pass this plaza don't have to pay). The toll for cars is 200 rubles during the day and 120 rubles at night. Using a transponder reduces the toll to 20%.
The price of travel on the old toll sections was also indexed for the start of the summer season. However, for unknown reasons, Avtodor removed information on the rates for each toll section from its website. According to the company's press release, the total price for all sections has now reached 1,380 rubles (for daytime travel on each section).
In total, at least 690 kilometers, and possibly as many as 700-800 kilometers, of the M-4 highway are toll roads (precise data is difficult to obtain on the Avtodor website, where various pages contradict each other). This is already about half the total length of the road from Moscow to the sea at Dzhubga (1,420 kilometers). Toll roads cover the entire section in the Moscow region, virtually all sections in the Tula and Lipetsk regions, and most of the highway in the Voronezh region and Krasnodar Krai. The only large, toll-free section remains from the south of the Voronezh region to Rostov-on-Don, and another smaller section south of Krasnodar.
Avtodor intends to continue converting the M-4 highway to a toll system as the remaining sections are reconstructed. Once this process is complete, the price of travel on the entire highway will likely be comparable to the cost of a plane ticket from Moscow to Sochi or Krasnodar.
Some toll sections on the M-4 are relatively easy to bypass, with virtually no increase in distance or travel time. Specifically, these include the first 300 kilometers from Moscow (bypassed via Tula) and the section from Rostov to Krasnodar (bypassed via Azov-Starominskaya-Timashevsk).
Source: travel.ru