38 billion dollars earmarked for improvements

Regular traffic jams, cars parked on sidewalks, and packed trolleys and streetcars are proof that Ukraine’s transportation system leaves much to be desired. Statistics indicated that Kyiv had 221,000 cars in the 1990s. Today there are more than 800,000 and by 2012 there will be about three million more. Ivan Shpyliovy, head of the Kyiv State City Administration’s chief directorate for transport, communications, and information, says that between 250,000 and 300,000 automobiles ply the streets of the capital every day, and in four years their numbers will reach 1.5 million, not counting the vehicles that make temporary stops in Kyiv.

Kyiv City Hall is envisaging a number of cardinal measures to ward off the horrors that may be caused by this huge road traffic circulation. The program “European Transport in European Kyiv,” recently unveiled at Kyiv City Hall, is aimed at developing Kyiv transportation system by Euro-2012. I have often heard about the municipal authorities’ grandiose to introduce the same kind of transportation system that exists in New York City, or even better. Denys Bass, Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky’s number-two man, says that the most important thing is the introduction of a computerized traffic control system, which local bureaucrats have been discussing for over a year with no results.

“This traffic control information system will make it possible to accurately monitor traffic jams through the central control station and regulate traffic with the aid of computer-controlled traffic lights. In other words, there will be no traffic cops wielding their illuminated batons; their functions will be performed by a dispatcher,” Bass explained.

The deputy mayor promised to replace the traffic lights - which he said are obsolete and long overdue for replacement - with 500 modern, “smart” devices that are an integral part of an electronic system. All this is planned to be completed by 2009, while video-based traffic monitoring is expected to go into operation in 2007-08. There are also plans to replace aging road signs with modern ones that will be visible both day and night; each road sign will last for at least eight years. In order to prevent Kyiv from being jammed by transit freight traffic, there will be truck terminals at every entrance into the city, along with stations where drivers can park their cars and explore the capital on public transport, of which there will be a lot more than now.

Says Denys Bass: “Take our subway. We’re planning to build the Podil-Vyhuriv line for Troieshchyna. It will have 12 stations, each located along municipal transport stops, thereby creating so-called traffic hubs. Next year three new stations will be opened on the Kurenivka- Pechersk subway line, and this branch will be extended by five stations with a handling capacity of 34,000 passengers an hour. The Kyiv Subway rolling stock will be replenished by 636 modern cars.”

By 2011 the Kyiv municipal authorities plan to purchase 650 buses, 520 trolleybuses, and 94 streetcars. They also plan to increase the number of stops and renovate existing ones, equipping them with electronic billboards indicating the time of bus and trolley arrivals.

In its fight against traffic jams, the Mayor’s Office proposes to build more interchanges (a total of 80 projects, including roads, traffic centers, and bridges) by 2011.

Raising our transport to the European level is a costly business that will require 38 billion hryvnias. Kyiv City Hall expects appropriations from the state and city budgets, as well as investors’ contributions.

Journalists are not the only ones questioning the municipal authorities’ ability to meet the 2012 public transport challenge.

“The program is good, but I am not sure that the current municipal authorities will be able to carry it out. Today, the main problem facing the Mayor’s Office is that it hasn’t formed a solid team capable of working to achieve concrete results. For example, in one year the railway authorities spent 1,700,000 hryvnias on bridge construction projects. Meanwhile, the Kyiv municipal authorities have not been able to spend 1.5 billion hryvnias that were earmarked for this purpose. Today no one can understand what the mayor and his team are actually doing, apart from their publicity campaigns and dubious land deals,” says Ivan Salii, deputy minister for Regional Development and Construction of Ukraine, until recently the capital city’s number-one transport manager.

It is difficult to predict whether Kyiv will be able to complete the necessary preparations in time for hosting the soccer championships. A number of Ukrainian cities have already begun implementing concrete measures, but Kyiv is just beginning to draft plans.