A toll road from Almaty to Issyk Kul?

Several Kyrgyzstan news outlets, including the TV station NTS and the internet site gazeta.kg, have reported that a Kazakh company called "Erkin TransService" has begun building a 117 kilometer toll road from Almaty to Issyk Kul. Apparently, this is a completely private enterprise, and the company building the road will reap the profits from the tolls. If the project is indeed successful in bringing wealthy Kazakhs from Almaty to Issyk Kul in under two hours, it will likely be a win-win situation for everybody. It would provide the urbanites of Almaty a chance to escape the smog easily on weekends, and it would be a boom for the Issyk Kul tourist business, which has been lagging since the events of March 2005. It would also likely start sending Issyk Kul real estate prices up...