City traffic and city planning

Abstract

This article analyses the research heritage of Alexei Alexandrovich Polyakov. Polyakov is a Soviet urbanist, whose main works were published between 1953 and 1967. Even taking into account ideological restrictions, his works were advanced for that period of Soviet transport planning. The authors, given the ideological context, reveal the main milestones of Polyakov’s research, comparing them with the works of his contemporaries and projecting them into the modern context using the mathematical modelling. The article discusses the development of Russian transport science in the Soviet period, covering the following issues: the percentage of the land area in streets (LAS), road network supply, traffic limits, the street and road network structure and its unevenness, public transport development and modal split.

Polyakov’s proposals are analyzed, as are the limitations of their implementation.

The authors identify existing problems of modern Russian transport science (as a part of path dependence), along with the problem of the implementation of the scientific knowledge in the decision-making process in the sphere of transport planning.