The Reconstruction of Moscow

Width (in metres)

Arbat

20.3

Herzen St.

23.5 ■

Kropotkin St.

21.5

We see then that the average width of the radial tho- roughfares in the central part of Moscow varies between 18 and 20 metres, and in some cases drops to 15 metres. Because the city has been developed through the cen- turies along the radial- circular system,, the following anomaly arises : the nearer the radial streets get to the centre, where one would expect them to be widest, the narrower they become, and the farther away from the centre and the nearer to the outskirts, the wider they become. For instance, Tverskaya-Yamskaya, the continuation of Gorky Street from Sadovoye Circle to Kamer-Kollezhe- sky Val is 34.5 metres wide on the average, or one and a half to two times as wide as Gorky Street. The Lenin- grad Highway— the continuation of Gorky Street—is 118 metres wide. Malaya Dmitrovka is 24.6 metres wide; Ka- layevskaya— a continuation of the latter — is 28.6 metres wide, and Novoslobodskaya — -the continuation of Ka- layevskaya — is 41.9 metres wide; the First Meshchan- skaya- — a continuation of Dzerzhinsky — is 41.7 metres wide; Krasnoprudny — a continuation of Kirov Street — - is 36.2 metres wide, and Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya- — a continuation of Kirov Street—is 41.1 metres wide. In deciding what the normal width of the streets should be the following factors were considered, bearing in mind, however, that not all streets would be the same, since every street.should be planned according to its importance either for transport or other purposes and should be laid out accordingly.

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