“I don’t know which genius specialist made these broken lines of urban transport” – said the manager of the municipal company “Ecobus” Ilko Tarpov during the discussion with experts, preceding the development of the Plan for sustainable urban mobility – Plovdiv, a reporter reported Plovdiv24.bg.
Nine of the city’s bus routes do not have a stop and do not pass near a train or bus station. Tarpov has no idea what needs these lines satisfy, but he thinks it would be nice to have such a connection. Recall that in Plovdiv there are two railway stations and two railway stations, as well as three bus stations, two of which are very close to each other.
“The issue is about intermodality. The existing network only satisfies those who live in the city and serves the central part of the city. In 2012, the footbridge at the central station was dismantled, to this day there is no solution to the problem of people from a whole neighborhood who were deprived of access to urban transport” – explained the expert.
According to the last census, the population of Plovdiv is slightly over 360,000 people and the main problem for traffic in the city is the increased number of vehicles.
“If we manage to reduce by 30% the number of cars entering/leaving the city, we will ease the traffic. Why do people come to the city by car? Because they don’t have convenient transportation,” he argued.
The good thing is that there are company buses to the factories, which eases the traffic a bit, but it would be even better if the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan covers the settlements up to 60 km around the city.
In Plovdiv, 18-meter long “Ikarus” buses cannot be put into operation to serve students in the morning and afternoon. The reason is that they are very long and there is nowhere for them to turn back. There are no end stops, the so-called turnstiles. Even the shorter 12-meter buses can hardly turn on a two-lane road.
