80% of capital's roads need repair

More than 80 % of the capital's roads are in a deplorable state and need repair. The opinion belongs to the author of a research on the issue, developed by the Development and Social Initiatives Institute (IDIS) Viitorul and presented at a news conferecne on Thursday, Info Prim Neo reports. The authors see another key problem of Chisinau's roads in the precarious financing of the reparation and maintenance works. The amount allocated for this purpose in 2008 is 45 million lei – 5.5 times less than necessary. “Moreover, there is no clear planning on operating the road infrastructure works,” says Mihai Bologan, an IDIS expert. Even more alarming is the fact that the number of cars running daily on the capital's streets has grown with 7,000-8,000 annually, while the roads remain the same. The expert doubts the practice of filling in the road holes, traditionally applied by the municipal authorities. He suggests the City Hall to privatize the companies maintaining and repairing the roads for not proving their efficiency. In response, the head of the City Hall Transport Direction, Veaceslav Tarna, has said filling in the holes remains the only solution to keep the roads in a satisfactory condition, on the background of money shortages, as the method is used in other European capitals, too. “Nobody having a caries changes all his teeth,” Tarna exemplified.