January DIGEST. Most important news articles of IPN "Chișinău” news flow

January 2: The development of road infrastructure and transport was the top priority of the Chisinau City Hall in 2022. Approximately 2.3 billion lei was spent on the rehabilitation of this sector, which is by 60% more than in 2021. The largest part of the allocated resources went to renew the buses and trolleybuses, to purchase and assemble new units of transport. Investments in this sector total 909 million lei.

January 2: With the installation of smart traffic lights in the intersection of Dacia Boulevard and Băcioii Noi Street in March last year, there has been no road accident, compared to the previous year, when three of the documented accidents had fatal consequences. The General Directorate of Urban Mobility stated in a press release that the primary goal of smart traffic lights to avoid accidents with serious consequences was achieved by discouraging dangerous maneuvers. The system continuously scans vehicle flows and transmits the information to the traffic light, which consecutively displays the green signal to vehicles on priority axes, secondary axes, as well as pedestrians, all in just a few seconds. But the most important thing is the flexibility it offers and the potential to better streamline traffic.

January 4: The first stage of renovation of the Summer Theater in Valea Morilor Park is “practically completed”. Work started nine months ago and is estimated to be 99% complete. No essential changes have been made so as to preserve the Theater’s history and tradition.

January 6: The network of schools and kindergartens in the municipality of Chisinau is the biggest in the county and necessitates massive investments. Over 3.8 billion lei was allocated for education in 2023, said deputy mayor of Chisinau Angela Kutasevich. According to her, the number of students in the municipality of Chisinau continues to grow and the local authorities are making effort to extend the network of schools. The 2023 municipal budget provides for revenues of 6.7 billion lei and an expenditure of 7.3 billion lei. The largest amount of the municipal budget allocations – over 3.8 billion lei – was earmarked for education. The deputy mayor noted the network of schools and kindergartens in the capital city is the largest in the country and requires additional investments.

January 6: Fifteen sakura (Japanese cheery) trees were planted on the lower part of Mircea cel Bătrân Blvd in Ciocana district of Chisinau. According to specialists of the Green Areas Association, if the sakura trees are not affected by frost, they will blossom this spring already. Victoria Covali, director of the Green Areas Association, said the species was proposed according to the dendrological project, taking into account a number of factors, such as decorativeness, resistance to gases and pollution.

January 9: The inhabitants of Chisinau are urged to take firs and spruces used during the winter holidays to the municipal waste platforms. From there, the trees will be collected by the specialized services of the Chisinau City Hall for being recycled. The General Housing and Amenities Division said the trees will be transported in a centralized way to the biodegradable waste platform for being chopped. The resulting sawdust will be used as organic compost.

January 12: The yards of apartment buildings and public spaces in Chisinau during the last few years were outfitted with new benches, dustbins and decorative urban furniture. Municipal authorities’ efforts to improve the image of the city are thwarted yet by vandals. About 50 units of urban furniture are annually vandalized in Chisinau. The head of the General Housing and Amenities Division Ion Burdiumov said the police are alerted every time. When they are identified, the culprits are obliged by legal ways to pay damages for the vandalized furniture. The street furniture is replaced not only when necessary, but also when the dwellers, associations of dwellers or municipal housing sector managing enterprises request, concomitantly with the municipal programs to place urban furniture under implementation. In public spaces, incusing green areas, such as parks and squares, new furniture is installed within the implemented projects.

January 13: A new installment of 144 zinc-plated waste bins, of the total 3,000 units bought by the municipal waste management company Autosalubritate, has arrived in Chisinau. Mayor Ion Ceban said the company is now working to assemble a total of 876 bins that will be distributed across the municipality in the course of next week.

January 14: A pumping station, also featuring a 10-kilometer sewage network, will be built in Chisinau’s Tohatin suburb. Co-funded by the Chisinau City Hall, the project will benefit almost 20,000 residents of the suburbs Tohatin, Cruzești and Budești. The cost was estimated at 31.7 million lei, of which almost 14 million lei was allocated by Chisinau City Hall. The work is expected to be completed this year. In the last three years, the municipality has invested 29 million lei in Tohatin in projects aimed at improving people’s living standards.

January 18: The municipality of Chisinau has one of the largest contact networks for city electric transport and over 80% of the travellers are transported by trolleybuses. Approximately 400,000 passengers daily use electric transport in the municipality of Chisinau. A number of 332 trolleybuses run on routes in Chisinau, alongside 133 buses and 130 minibuses. But this number of public transport units is not enough to save the capital city from traffic jams, primarily at rush hour. The municipality aims to shorten the routes and to buy new-generation articulated buses.

January 18: The solid waste collected in the city, approximately 190,000 tonnes a year, will be sent for recycling, either the refuse is sorted at the source or not. This will enable to recycle over 10% of the weight of waste or 40-45% of the volume in 2023. The municipality will sign a contract for the provision of waste sorting services with an expert business entity. The Chisinau City Hall said the contract will be signed by the cleanup company “Autosalubritate” and the company “ABS”, which won the public procurement contest. It is a contract for the provision of services to sort the waste that is collected daily in Chisinau and its suburbs. The goal is to increase the quantity of recycled waste and to diminish the amount of waste stored at the landfill in Țânțăreni.

January 19: The professional parent assistance service in the municipality of Chisinau and other childcare services will be strengthened with the assistance of UNICEF. The municipality has launched an awareness-raising campaign entitled “Change the life of a child. Become a professional parent assistant”, which aims to increase the number of professional parent assistants from 29 at present to 50 in the course of this year. “It is very important to offer the necessary support to children who are in situations of risk so that they overcome these crises with the smallest possible impact on their psycho-emotional state,” deputy mayor of Chisinau Angela Kutasevich stated in the launch of the campaign.

January 19: The efforts of the inhabitants of the municipality of Chisinau to sort waste at source will not be useless. The collected refuse will no longer be buried, but will be processed and sorted by a private company with which the municipality signed a contract for the provision of services. In the event to sign the contract, mayor of Chisinau Ion Ceban said all the solid waste collected in the city, about 190,000 tonnes a year, will be transmitted for processing either it was sorted at source or not. This will enable to recycle over 10% of the weight of waste or 40-45% of its volume in 2023.

January 27: The board of directors of the Apă-Canal Chișinău water and sewer utility was urgently convened Friday. The only topic discussed was the “critical situation” with the provision of water and sewer services. The Council was briefed about the situation that occurred following the increase in the price of services, a fact that led to the company’s debt to the electricity supplier. “The decision was taken to urgently, repeatedly, address all the central authorities. Let me remind you that in 2021 and 2022 dozens of letters were sent to the Supreme Security Council, the President’s Office, the Parliament and the ANRE, and all remained without due attention”, wrote mayor Ion Ceban on social media.

January 28: With a snowfall hitting Chisinau overnight into Saturday, Public Amenities laborers were out and about, working hard to clear walkways and tertiary roads within courtyards. Forty-nine pieces of specialized equipment were involved in the process, and about 90 metric tons of deicing materials were spread. Manual snow clearing efforts involved 384 laborers. Priority was given to walkways along the main streets, and to connector roads to public facilities, such as hospitals, family doctors’ centers, schools and kindergartens, as well as transit stops.

January 30: There are five arts schools in the municipality of Chisinau and over 10,000 students of these are involved in different forms of artistic education. To make education more comfortable and youth-friendly, the municipality invests in the modernization of cultural infrastructure. The conditions in art schools are being improved. These are outfitted with new musical instruments, while the network of libraries is being extended. Each year, the Chisinau City Hall increases the budget intended for culture. In 2023, this budget is 256 million lei.