The capital of Ukraine will forget its transport problems in five years’ time. This is a promise that the Kyiv authorities gave at a recent roundtable on the development of the capital’s transport infrastructure organized by the Kyiv City Administration (KCA) and the Horshenin Institute as part of the project Strategies of Kyiv’s Development until 2025.
Addressing this meeting, KCA Chairman Oleksandr Popov pointed out that the uneven development of civil construction and the road network had created a transport problem which, as the polls show, most Kyivites consider one of the top priorities. According to Popov, the main factors that caused this situation are insufficient care about the development of public transport and a fragmentary approach to the problem of improving the city’s transport flows.
“We have decided to take an integrated approach to these matters,” the KCA head said. So, in his words, the city administration has already begun to work on establishing a new public transport system in Kyiv. A program is being carried out to upgrade the public transport fleet. Under this scheme, the number of buses and trolleybuses will increase by 70 and 50 percent, respectively, while the subway rolling stock will be upgraded by 50 percent within 1,5-2 years. As part of this project, the KCA is planning to sign an agreement with the Kriukiv Railway Car Making Plant on the complete reconstruction and replacement of equipment in 185 metro cars according to Japanese technology, which will cost the city five times less than acquiring a new rolling stock. Today, only 100 out of the 600 cars being used in the Kyiv metro are new.
Carrying out the Kyiv municipal transport updating project, the city authorities also intend to solve some more or less essential problems, so to speak, “on the move,” including the employment of Kyivites and the situation in the capital’s business. “I want to emphasize that Kyiv’s enterprises will also be working on updating the municipal transport fleet. We are negotiating with several Kyiv factories on manufacturing our city’s first tram. It is very important, for it is Kyivites that will be producing it, which will create new jobs and furnish people with wages and social security,” the KCA chair noted.
To add further weight to their promise to settle transport problems within five years, the authorities are saying they are taking some real steps to achieve this goal. For instance, in less than a week’s time a suburban ring railroad will be launched, which has, incidentally, cost the city budget an estimated 180 million hryvnias. The KCA head assured the Kyivites that this “overground metro” would be launched as soon as October 4. The only drawback is it will work during rush hours only – in the morning between 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. and in the evening between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.
The city subway will also undergo reconstruction before the end of this year. The central and municipal authorities have promised Kyivites a New Year gift – to unveil the metro station Exhibition Center on December 27. Popov also says one more metro station, Race Course, will have been opened by the end of the next year.
Besides, as the KCA chairman said, another metro line that links Troieshchyna and the Right Bank will be laid within five years. Although this project will be launched next year, Popov stresses that building the Podil-Voskresenka Bridge is the actual start.” I can say that building the bridge is in fact the construction of metro because the first tier of this bridge is a metro line,” the KCA chairman noted. He forecasts that Troieshchyna residents will be traveling by overground metro to the Dnipro’s other bank in three years’ time.
According to the Kyiv City Administration chairman, another important question is the computerized road traffic control system which will at first embrace the downtown and then extend to other parts of Kyiv. The KCA estimates that the implementation of this project in the city center alone will allow intensifying the traffic by an average 15-20 minutes.
