IN BRIEF

Published: March 13, 2013 (Issue # 1750)

Baby on Board

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — A woman gave birth at a traffic police checkpoint on Tallinnskoye Shosse on Monday, news website Fontanka.ru reported.

The woman’s husband was driving his wife to a maternity clinic, but she began to give birth while they were en route. With few options available, the man decided to stop at a traffic police checkpoint, where the policemen on duty assisted in delivering the baby. Paramedics were called to the scene and were reported to have arrived promptly.

The woman gave birth to a boy.

G20 Access

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg plans to build a separate access road for government corteges from the city’s Pulkovo airport for this year’s G20 summit, to be held in St. Petersburg on September 5 and 6, news website Fontanka.ru reported.

The city administration will receive 1.4 billion rubles ($45.5 million) for the construction of the road from federal sources, which will run from the airport runway to St. Petersburg’s ring road through the fields of the Predportovy collective farm. The road will allow VIPs to reach the ring road in seven minutes.

Large-scale international events in the city such as the St. Petersburg Economic Forum — or the G8 summit in 2006 — often cause huge traffic jams when the high-ranking guests arrive at Pulkovo airport and again when they leave. However, the G20 summit may cause city residents less inconvenience.

From the ring road the delegates will have rapid access to the Konstantinovsky Palace in the St. Petersburg suburb of Strelna, where the summit is set to take place.

Following the summit the road will be available for use by local residents.

Wireless Transport

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The city is holding a public vote to determine which routes of local public transport will be equipped with free Wi-Fi Internet, news agency Interfax reported.

The voting is taking place on the official website of one of the city transport operators supporting the project. The routes currently leading the voting list include one from Krestovsky Island to the Baltiisky Railway Station, another from the suburban railway station in Pesochnoye to the Ozerki metro station, a route linking the Staraya Derevnya metro station with Shuvalovsky Prospekt and a connection between the suburbs of Lomonosov and Kronstadt.

The pilot stage of the voting features at least 87 public and 98 commercially-operated routes.

The results of the voting are to be announced at the end of March. By summer vehicles on the winning routes will be equipped with special Wi-Fi modules. Bus routes from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt are already equipped with Wi-Fi.