November 25, 2013. The development of Yekaterinburg will speed up by 30 years in the course of EXPO 2020 preparations, Soviet of the Federation member and head of the EXPO 2020 Application Committee’s Supervisory Council Arkady Chernetsky said in his interview to Kommersant.

‘Over the six months preceding the EXPO event, Yekaterinburg is to receive a number of visitors that is dozens of times bigger than the city’s population. So the city needs to make every effort to make sure that the transportation and the road network are a supporting factor and not an obstacle to getting around the city or to visiting the exhibition sites. This means we have a lot of work ahead of us: expanding all the major routes, building new highways and junctions and providing new means of transportation and new ways of bringing people to Russia from abroad. This involves air options as well as buses and railways. Moreover, there will emerge a need to park an enormous number of cars, new subway stations will be needed, as well as much else besides,’ he said.

Chernetsky also added that after the EXPO exhibition Yekaterinburg will go on developing in the same trend as the one set out in the general plan and in the strategic plan: it will be a multi-functional center that is a good place to live in, an attractive site to do business in, and an interesting location to visit. He also stressed that while Yekaterinburg can boast being a nationally important city right now, the EXPO challenge means the city aspires to become globally important as well.