Mykhaylo Grushevskyi is learning about car models. He has not seen too many in Kyiv of 1917, but nowadays he sees thousands cars passing him. Moreover, he sometimes receives a whole day to study the model in front of him. I wonder if he is afraid to lose his spot. Possibly, if one day his monument will be reallocated to suburbs in order to have more parking slots in central Kyiv. Does it sound weird? That is the type of thinking we are heading towards.
Number of cars is becoming critical to Kyiv. It disturbs it inhabitants.
Endless traffic jams. Two gigantic traffic jams with more than 10 000 drivers happened in Kyiv on September 10th and Sep 18th. Kyiv’s General development plan have been designed to accommodate the numbers of cars, which is twice less than current one. If looks like a problem, doesn’t it ? If we mention that August 2007 car sales were 52% higher compare to August 2006, it might become traffic apocalypses soon.
The second problem is pollution. Ecologists say that air pollution level increases 3-5 times around central highways in rush hours. True. It not pleasant to breathe when I walk home, down bulvar Shevchenko from metro “Universytet” every day. I wonder how the foreign tourist feels after coming to one of the most green capitals in Europe. I doubt he enjoys nice little walk at Khreschatyk at 6-7 p.m working day.
A lot of times I here a thought that we need better roads and more modern par kings. It puzzles me. Those improvements seem not quite related to the problems mentioned. Betters roads and more parking slots encourage more people to use car transport even more. It contributes to car sales growth and increase number of cars. But it doesn’t solve the first problem. And it worsens the second one.
In my personal opinion, the there are two major areas where we all may improve.
Undoubtedly, next time we elect the Mayor we need to be more careful. Probably, we should ask a candidate whether he visited London and saw a reliable and comfortable system of public transportation there. And whether he is going to run social advertisements like in London “Your second car is bus”. Secondly, we would also feel interested in his opinion about bicycle rental system recently introduced in Paris. Is he going to encourage bicycle and motorollers movement, at least, in central Kyiv. Finally, the candidate should state whether he considers the experience of Athens successful. In Athens people can drive cars only with even number on even day, and vice versa. Good European innovations, involving public transport development and reasonable limitations, should be considered.
Furthermore, we came to last and most important improvement opportunity. I speak about self-made middle class here. In order to decrease traffic jams we may start from obeying traffic rules. But while moving towards civilized behavior it is not enough. The whole attitude to public transportation has to be changed. We should think about occasionally limiting own consumption for the sake of all of us. Voluntarily using metro instead of driving a car is a good start.
And last, very sensitive thing. I don’t mind Nissan Micra and Daewoo Matiz on the streets. But let have an additional tax on power of engine introduced. Horrible and huge Jeeps must go away from the City roads.
P.S I want to own car too. There is nothing bad in that. But I want ecologically friendly model. And I hope not to use for everyday business, rather I will use for weekend trips.
P.S.S I would like to thank for ideas to
Катерина Коберник «Всем стоять»
Андрей Сливка «Нажми на тормоза»
Articles in "Korrespondent" 22 Sep, 2006
And I praise Moby for his album “Play”, which is intellectual power for my mind.
