Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan has emphasized the need to reduce traffic jams in the Armenian capital, identifying three major obstacles to public transport.
“One accident cannot bring the entire Myasnikyan Avenue to a standstill,” he said.
The mayor identified three main problems hindering public transport.
“In the morning, our buses spend a certain amount of time traveling from point A to point B, but during rush hour, that time can increase by as much as 70-80%. This indicates that our experimental dedicated bus lanes do have a certain effect, but only along specific corridors. It is clear that dedicated bus lanes must be introduced along all our main routes, and we must ensure that our buses and trolleybuses can travel along their primary routes without obstruction. This does not mean that there will be bus lanes everywhere throughout the city, but it does mean that the main transport corridors will have dedicated bus lanes, allowing buses to spend less time traveling from point A to point B, even during rush hour,” he said.
The mayor identified illegally parked vehicles on roadways as another major problem, noting that they significantly slowed traffic flow.
“The second important factor is that our measurements show that a car parked in the second lane of a street causes a four-second delay for the first approaching vehicle, a six-second delay for the second, and during rush hour, this chain reaction extends all the way to the thousandth vehicle. And we are not talking about just one car. Another comes along, then a delivery driver arrives. As a result, if 1,000 vehicles would normally pass through in three hours, it takes them four hours instead. Therefore, we must use the tools at our disposal, including video surveillance equipment, to ensure that such violations are penalized,” the mayor said.
Avinyan identified road accidents as the third major obstacle to effective traffic management.
“These are minor accidents involving damage worth 50,000-80,000 drams. Two cars that have merely scraped each other’s fenders can create a two-kilometer traffic jam. If they block two lanes on the three-lane Myasnikyan Avenue, the average speed drops from 22 km/h to 8 km/h because vehicles have to change lanes, resulting in enormous congestion,” he said.
The mayor also recalled that legislation governing local self-government in Yerevan provided for fines when those involved in a road accident failed to clear the accident scene within 15 minutes, thereby obstructing the movement of other vehicles.
Avinyan instructed the Public Order Protection Service to develop and select the most effective mechanism for detecting and documenting such violations within the next two months. (Pan.am)