With minibuses at crossroads. Analysis by Info-Prim Neo

With the local elections behind, the municipality again focused on the removal of the minibuses from the highway of the capital – Stephan the Great Boulevard. Announced as solution for reducing the heavy traffic in the capital city over a year ago, the decision was taken without a preliminary estimation of the possible consequences and was criticised by the private carriers and passengers. It is said that the previous local authorities tried to fulfil the order ‘from above’ to free the boulevard from minibuses, and the Chisinau specialists that considered such a solution as inefficient, did not dare to disobey their superiors so as not to lose their jobs. Such a hypothesis was formulated by the Chisinau minibus owners, who said that they are more and more hindered in their activity by the authorities’ officially undeclared interests. They think that the fact that the removal of the minibuses from Stephan the Great Boulevard was followed by the adoption of a law that bans the utilisation of reequipped minibuses to transport passengers was not accidental. [Former ingenious people are not praised any more] The former ingenious people are not praised anymore for the way in which they managed to reequip the minibuses and make themselves efficient in an ex-Soviet capital with a deplorable situation in public transport. Moreover, they are now unsure whether to continue with such a business in the municipality of Chisinau or not. A large number of minibus drivers abandoned the job in Moldova and left abroad to look for better and safer incomes. The maxi-taxi owners hope yet that the situation will be redressed and they do not hurry to sell the routes, paying the state taxes regularly even if now they earn less than before, after the number of minibuses was reduced almost twice in half a year. [The change should come through minibuses also] The councillor of the “Moldova Noastra” Alliance Party Oleg Cernei was the first to raise the issue of resuming the movement of minibuses along the highway of the capital in the new Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC). Cernei considered that in such a way they will normalise the situation in the municipality and will return to the situation that existed until President Voronin controlled the movement of the minibuses. “One of the measures the municipality should take immediately for the voters to see the change is to re-establish the old routes of the minibuses,” Cernei said in the interpellation he made at the meeting of the CMC last week. He suggested to the mayor to make such a decision, stressing the necessity of creating a commission of municipal transporters that would consider this possibility. To support his assertions, the councillor said that when the new school year begins, the large flow of students and pupils will create problems to the municipality, especially after the number of minibuses was drastically reduced. Ion Mamaliga, chairman of the Private Transporters Association, considers that through the redirection of the minibuses from the boulevard was necessary to optimise the traffic, the way in which the decision was taken was incorrect. The redirection had to be carried out as a result of economic studies, and the minibuses had to be transferred to different streets, not to a single street, the cited source says. The requests of the private transporters to allow the minibuses coming from the Telecentru district to move along M.Eminescu Street remained unheard. It was considered that in such a way, they will avoid overlapping these routes and the routes coming from the Buiucani district and, respectively, the inevitable traffic congestions. But it did not happen so and now the situation at the intersections of the respective street is said to be catastrophic. The segment of A.Pushkin Street below Stephan the Great Boulevard sees a similar situation. The transporters bypass whole quarters not to get stuck in traffic jams, Mamaliga says. [The boulevard is still full of traffic] The desperate situation of the minibus drivers, who have to go around the boulevard, cannot be explained by the fact that the traffic in the centre of the capital was eased. On the contrary. Ion Mamaliga says that the private cars that were earlier avoiding the boulevards due to the large number of minibuses, now replaced them, exceeding even their number. Under such conditions, the head of the private transporters counts on the willingness of the present local administration to carry out the economic study that would prove that the minibuses are needed in the capital and that many routes are more efficient if they go through the centre of Chisinau. Ion Mamaliga also says that the authorities should play fairly and transparently, by fixing real tariffs for the provided services. This fact will increase transporters’ confidence and they would be willing to assume risks to find money and invest in new means of transport. [There are interests that have not yet been “officially declared”?] The old local administration said many a time that it is interested in increasing the number of vehicles in public transport and in finding other methods of paying the fares, but it did almost nothing in this respect. Though it purchased several dozens of new buses and minibuses, the lack of means of transport in Chisinau and in suburbs is still stringent, say officials of the City Hall and residents of the capital. The capital runs the risk of remaining with very few minibuses by this yearend – about 700 of the about 2,000 that existed at the start of the year. The reequipped minibuses made in 1991 were taken out of routes on 1 January 2007, those made in 1992 – on 1 May 2007 and those made in 1994 – on 1 July 2007. Under the Government Decision, another about 60 not equipped minibuses made in 1991 will be removed on 1 August because their working life of 15 years expired. The owners of reequipped minibuses do not hurry to replace them by new cars for the reason that they do not have guarantees from the state that the situation in the transport sector will not change overnight. At the same time, the minibuses got dearer and cost almost twofold more compared with a year ago. Furthermore, now it is extremely difficult to register the minibuses and there are suspicions that such a situation was created artificially by the authorities so as to make the people not want to bring cars into the country anymore.