How to get road repairs in your city

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It may not work the first time, so be persistent.

Who is responsible for the condition of the roads

Any road belongs to someone, and the owner is responsible for its condition. In the city, this is a municipal property, therefore, the city authorities are engaged in repairs. The road near the shopping center is most likely under the control of its owner, so the administration must patch it up. In the courtyard Explanation of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia that the entrances to residential buildings are under the jurisdiction of the State Traffic Inspectorate - this is a local area or municipal ownership. Depending on the owner, these plots must be repaired either by the management company, or by the HOA, or by the city authorities.

It is not so important who is the owner of the road. The main thing is that any road can be repaired.

What problems can you complain about

The condition of the roads is regulated by GOST R 50597-2017. Automobile roads and streets. Requirements for the operational state permissible under the conditions of ensuring road safety. Control methods. It contains the permissible requirements for the road, shoulders, bike paths and other infrastructure elements. If there are deviations from the standards, they must be eliminated. In the case of roads, violations are the following conditions:

• Pits are longer than 15 cm (imagine a hundred-ruble bill), wider than 60 cm (two A4 sheet lengths) and deeper than 5 cm (bank card height).
• Potholes are smaller, but on a road section with a length of 100 m.
• Waves with a depth of more than 3 cm on main streets and more than 5 cm on local streets.
• Track 2–3 cm deep, depending on the road category. A track of more than 5 cm is eliminated with the help of a major overhaul.
• Rails, railroad tracks, storm drains and manholes are understated or overstated by more than 1 cm.

These violations must be eliminated within 1–14 days, depending on the problem and road congestion. For example, a pit on a motorway that runs through the entire city needs to be cleaned up in a day, and on a cycle path or in a residential area - in 12 days.

Previously, GOST R 50597-93 was in effect, but now it is irrelevant. It is necessary to focus on the new GOST R 50597-2017. It does not provide for deviations from the established parameters of the road surface, as indicated by paragraph 5.2.4: "The road surface should not have defects in the form of potholes, subsidence, breaks, ruts and other damage."

Yuri Avanesov Leading Lawyer of the European Legal Service

Where to go

There are many services that accept applications from citizens. These are both state websites and Internet resources of activists.

City administration

The first way is to write an appeal to the local administration or to the management of the improvement of your city. Go to the official website of the settlement and find the section "Appeals". Attach photos to the letter and indicate the exact address of the problem area. It will take about 33 days to wait for a response: it takes three days to register an appeal, and 30 days to respond.

However, this is not the most efficient way. They may write to you that the pit has not been found, there is no money, or that the repair of this site is not planned.

Often, officials do not even try to lift a finger: they are used to impunity, so no one does anything. Why bother if you are in no danger for inaction? And a person believes in a miracle that from one piece of paper all officials will immediately rush to work. But this is not the case.

Vladimir Kostrov organizer of "RosYama Lipetsk"

Activist sites

It is more efficient to write an appeal through the services of activists. One of the popular ones is "".

It automatically generates a letter based on the data that you enter and sends it to the traffic police. It is better to attach photographs to the appeal and mark the place in question on the map so that the inspection officer can find it. Before submitting information, you need to register on the site so that you can receive a response by e-mail.

In some cities there are communities of activists, for example, "Beautiful Petersburg", "Beautiful Lipetsk", "Beautiful Kirov". On their websites, you can complain not only about the roads, but also about other problems: a broken sidewalk, an unauthorized dump or parking on the lawn.

The resource automatically generates a message and sends it to the responsible municipal authority, but not to the traffic police. And this is the disadvantage: they can send you an unsubscribe.

If the appeal worked and the road was repaired, change the status of the complaint on the website and brag about your success on social networks. The necessary work may not be done in the best way, but it is still a victory.

Before: no sidewalk, in the off-season people walk in the mud. vk.com/lipetsk_krasiv

After: the sidewalk is made. vk.com/lipetsk_krasiv

Traffic police website

Road safety is monitored by the traffic police, so the most effective way is to go there directly. This can be done through the official. It does not matter who owns and where the road is located: in the yard, in a parking lot or on the main street of the city.

After receiving the appeal, the traffic police officer checks if there is a problem. If yes, it issues a repair order to the owner of the road. It must be completed within 1-14 days in accordance with GOST. You can download the application templates, do not forget to change the region to your own in the header.

The traffic police website has a peculiarity: you cannot paste the copied text into the "Text of the appeal" field. Thus, the department suppresses the mass sending of messages by copy-pasting. We bypassed this system and began to attach, along with photographs, the text of the appeal in the Word document, and in the field itself write a short phrase: "Please consider my application (the statement and photographs of the offense are attached in the files)." It is advisable to make an appeal in Word 97-2003 format so that the traffic police can open and read it.

Vladimir Kostrov

If you see that somewhere there is no hatch or there are dangerous pits, because of which an accident may occur, report them immediately by phone to the traffic police on duty, so that the responsible employees take action faster. Perhaps by this appeal you will prevent an accident or save someone's life, and not only achieve road repairs.

What to do if you sent an unsubscribe, but the road was not repaired

Activists of the “Krasivy Lipetsk” movement calculated that, on average, problems are eliminated for 20-25% of requests, and in other cases they get excuses. The RosYama service gives approximately the same statistics. But this is not a reason to give up.

Step 1. Apply a second time

If the first email didn't work, write again. Involve neighbors, friends, and coworkers - have everyone submit a complaint about the problem. The more there are, the more likely it is that the municipal authorities will start doing something.

We take the second step and continue to make claims until we get a result. If you received a formal reply, you send a repeated appeal to the traffic police and at the same time write to the prosecutor's office. In 2018, I sent 140 applications and several dozen complaints, and in 2015 - more than 300.

Vladimir Kostrov

It is important that the traffic police work according to the law. An employee who leaves for the site must not only draw up an order to repair the problem area, but also initiate an administrative offense case. If this happens, the official faces a fine of 50-100 thousand rubles - so the city authorities have much more motivation to repair roads.

Step 2. Contact the prosecutor's office

If the pit is not removed, and the traffic police does not initiate a case, you need to contact the prosecutor's office. She will file a statement of claim in court, which will oblige the contractor to make repairs. However, this does not always work. Sometimes prosecutors do not want to spoil relations with city officials and try to hush up the problem.

Step 3. Write a complaint to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation

The last stage is a complaint to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia about non-observance of the law by the traffic police or to the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation about the inaction of the regional prosecutor. The federal department sends the first appeal to the regional level, so it may not work either. The second time the complaint will be considered - and then wait for a solution to the problem.

What to remember

1. Good roads are a requirement for road safety.
2. Any road must be repaired within 1-14 days without any excuses.
3. If you receive an unsubscribe, you need to send requests again until the problem is solved.
4. Silence is a sign of agreement with broken roads.
5. It is worth involving friends and acquaintances in the business. If at least 5% of motorists begin to demand order, then the traffic police will drown in the mountains of paper. It will become easier for them to fix problems without waiting for calls.