Since the opening of traffic on the Crimean bridge, which took place on May 16, 2018, more than 8 million cars have passed on it. This was reported in the information center "Crimean bridge". They also noted that the operation of the highway is carried out as normal, and more than 140 employees and 35 units of road equipment are responsible for the smooth operation of the highway.

“Eight million cars, including 103 thousand buses and 795 thousand trucks, drove along the Crimean bridge in almost a year and a half of work. The flow to the peninsula exceeded the Taman Peninsula by less than one percent and amounted to 4.034 million vehicles, ”the report said.

It is noted that the highest monthly traffic intensity in both directions was recorded in August 2019 and amounted to 1 million cars. At the same time, the daily record fell on August 12 - then 35,989 vehicles drove along the highway in 24 hours.

In the information center, they add that most often the bridge across the Kerch Strait, in addition to local residents and the population of the neighboring Krasnodar Territory, is used by motorists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Stavropol Territory, Rostov, Volgograd, Voronezh, Samara, Kaluga, Moscow, Leningrad Regions.

“Car owners and carriers who used the Crimean bridge instead of the ferry (cars and trucks), saved 16 billion rubles from May 16, 2018. For one trip by ferry (from the port of Crimea to the port of Kavkaz or in the opposite direction), it was necessary to pay from 1.5 to 19.5 thousand rubles, depending on the type and size of the car, ”stated the Crimean Bridge info center ".

“The Crimean bridge has already become one of the episodes of history that Russia is proud of”

The opening of the Crimean bridge in May 2018 divided the history of the peninsula into two stages - before and after, the Crimean political scientist Vladislav Ganzhara believes.

“Of course, from the point of view of establishing communication and logistics, the opening of the Crimean bridge was the most anticipated event for us. And for that, in fact, a short period of his work, millions of cars, citizens of our country and guests of the peninsula drove through it. Crimeans easily began to get to the mainland of the Russian Federation, and, of course, this logistic solution connected with the Crimean bridge allowed the Crimea to completely literally cease to be a peninsula, as it was from the moment of reunification with Russia, ”said interlocutor RT.

Earlier, the head of the region, Sergei Aksyonov, reported that approximately 6.8 million people had a rest in the resorts of Crimea for the nine months of 2019 - this is 10% higher than the figure for the same period of 2018. At the same time, it was previously noted that 58% of the total number of tourists arrived on the peninsula along the Crimean bridge.

The Crimean bridge solves not only economic and logistical problems, but also by itself has become a popular destination for car travel enthusiasts, said State Duma deputy from Crimea Ruslan Balbek.

“Without exaggeration, this is a fundamental symbol of the Russian Crimea, and everyone wants to touch this symbol to some extent. Such construction sites, as they say, for centuries, and therefore our bridge has become one of the episodes of history that the country is proud of. So it’s absolutely not surprising to me that people deliberately make changes to the route in order to drive along the Crimean bridge, ”the parliamentarian said in an interview with RT.

We add that in December it is planned to open the railway part of the Crimean bridge. The operator of passenger transportation will be the company Grand Service Express. First, the trains will run along two routes: Moscow - Simferopol and St. Petersburg - Sevastopol. In addition, the FSUE Crimean Railway published a train schedule across the Crimean Bridge.

According to the document, the journey from Moscow to Simferopol will take 33 hours and five minutes, and from St. Petersburg to Sevastopol - 42 hours.

At the same time, at the end of October, dynamic and static tests of the load-bearing elements of the railway part of the bridge began. In particular, freight test trains began to run along the bridge. In addition, builders tested architectural lighting. After a full launch at night, it will be a Russian tricolor.