Moscow is not known for its sunshine, but city authorities believe it gets enough sunlight to afford solar-powered bus stops, Kommersant reported on Thursday.
The stops, which will use solar energy collected during daytime to provide lightning for passengers in the night, are part of City Hall’s strategy for tackling Moscow’s abysmal transportation problems, Deputy Mayor Nikolai Lyamov said at a press conference.
The city will invest 192 billion rubles ($6.5 billion) into updating its mass transit and road network in 2012, Lyamov said.
In addition to solar-powered bus stops, the money will be spent on roadside traffic jam warning boards, “adaptive” traffic light systems that factor in the road situation and about 50 kilometers of new highways, Lyamov said.
The official did not specify the number of solar-powered bus stops. Moscow gets about 1,700 hours of sunshine a year – more than London – but its insolation level, or measure of energy the Russian capital get from the Sun, stands at 2.87 kWh/m2/day, compared to 5.21 in Miami, Florida, or 3.34 for Paris, according to Moscow-meteo.ru website.
