The municipal enterprise "Kyivpastrans" is holding a tender on January 29 for a substantial amount – 20 million 143 thousand 863 hryvnias.
These funds are intended for a comprehensive service package for the maintenance of waiting pavilions, as reported by "Prozorro".
Clearly, this cost includes cleaning, painting, washing of windows, and more. Of course, it is essential to maintain cleanliness and order. However, thousands of stops in the capital are in dire condition: the benches are uncomfortable, outdated, and broken... They look shabby and primitive, as if infrastructural development has bypassed them for a century. Many stops don’t even have benches for seating or a small roof to shelter from the rain. And don’t even mention the information boards. To read the arrival or departure times of buses, one would need a large magnifying glass. The hours and minutes indicated on these signs are like poppy seeds. How can elderly people with poor eyesight navigate such a schedule?!
Yet, here we are, spending 20 million hryvnias from the city budget on stops. Another expenditure. Such expenses occur every year.
3 Two years ago, "Kyivpastrans" conducted a similar tender titled: "Comprehensive services for the maintenance of waiting pavilions" for 12 million 537 thousand hryvnias. Why haven’t the stops improved qualitatively for 12 million?
Today, this work costs over 20 million hryvnias. Do you think anything will drastically change for passengers after this? Probably not. It’s easy to predict that in a year, the cost of a similar order will increase by several million hryvnias.
The main goal is to utilize budget funds.
However, city officials don’t seem to care, as they don’t use public transport. They often undertake official trips abroad, where they can see the state of transportation and road infrastructure. Everything is well-maintained and seamlessly integrated into the urban environment. The design of bus stop complexes perfectly fits the architecture of the historical center of various European cities. Why don’t we hear proposals from the head of the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the city, Ruslan Kandybor, on how to do something similar in Kyiv? What are the city officials waiting for while they slowly update the stops? They have erected a small number of modern bus stop complexes and have since become complacent. They provide various reasons for the delays, promise great prospects, but nothing changes.
On the screen – nothing but zeros.
So, Kyiv, with its nearly 100 billion annual budget, still cannot equip public transport stops with modern electronic information boards even on key routes near metro stations. Some stops do have such boards, but they are just a drop in the ocean. There are also electronic signs that do not display information about the arrival or departure of buses, trolleybuses, or trams. Because the screen shows nothing but zeros, as, for example, on Mykola Mikhnovskyi Boulevard. The electronic boards at the stops reflect the indifference of officials. People are outraged that at some times, the displayed information is incorrect. As for passenger convenience, they might as well think about it... themselves?
4 It turns out this is a problem that the city authorities led by Klitschko cannot solve. By the way, for many years, "Kyivpastrans" was headed by Vitaliy Klitschko's protégé, Dmytro Levchenko.
Let’s recall how the Kyiv Mayor previously boasted:
“Using leading modern technologies, we are gradually transforming Kyiv into a European, comfortable, safe, and progressive city.”
5 He and his subordinates have successfully promoted the construction of 50 "autonomous smart modular stops" and the installation of 19 waiting pavilions of modern European type (and that’s for all of Kyiv).
After Klitschko took charge of the city, "Kyivpastrans" announced:
“In 2015, 50 electronic boards were installed. At the beginning of 2016, 5 more were installed, and the installation of information boards continues.”
Show us the results of your activities, esteemed officials! During this time, could modern bus stop complexes with electronic boards have been installed on all key streets and squares? But that hasn’t happened.
A dormant "tabloid" economy.
As the media reported, in 2021, "Kyivpastrans" stated that they planned to install 1150 new boards within a year. Was it unsuccessful?
In 2023, the city had 126 electronic boards installed at 54 stops and 19 rapid tram stations. Four of them were not operational due to power supply issues. Eight boards were inactive because they needed modernization. This is all the "tabloid" economy for a major capital.
There have been plenty of colorful promises from the municipal authorities.
In particular, in 2021, Vitaliy Klitschko mentioned during the presentation of the main directions of the city’s transport and parking policy that
6 “comfortable public transport is not just about the speed of travel. Therefore, the city government is introducing a new quality of passenger transportation…”
He also emphasized that public transport should operate precisely according to the schedule, with a maximum deviation of two minutes.
“So that people don’t freeze at stops while waiting, there should be a minute-by-minute transport schedule at each stop. In printed form and on electronic panels. Just like in Germany, Austria, and many European countries. We have already equipped 450 stops with electronic boards. And we plan to equip over two thousand more…” – these were the grand projects from the city leader.
They planned for stops not only to have electronic boards but also printed information. So why is this not happening? Yet, this year, 20 million hryvnias will be allocated from the city treasury for the maintenance of stops. And let investors pay for the electronic boards from their own pockets?
Investors, where are you?
"Kyivpastrans" claims that an investment program is operational in the city, so these boards are being installed with investors' funds. Where can we see these investors today? What will the head of the Kyiv Investment Agency, a Kyiv City Council deputy and party associate of Vitaliy Klitschko, Bohdan Chorniy, inform the community about this?
Meanwhile, the agency’s website still displays information about a super project – the construction of three cable car stations with public facilities along the route: the arch of the so-called "People's Friendship," Postal Square, and Trukhaniv Island. The estimated budget is 520 million hryvnias. It was planned to be constructed between 2017 and 2020. A colossal amount! And searching for investors to equip stops with electronic boards is probably a trivial matter for Chorniy.
7 How many more decades will Kyiv residents have to wait for wealthy businessmen to come to the capital's investment agency?
City officials have shifted this responsibility onto investors, while they wait on the sidelines. Kyiv residents see how often attempts are made to squeeze some kiosk near a stop or replace it, labeling the structure a bus stop complex.
Surpassing Africa.
The information boards showing the arrival times of transport ceased operation on February 24, 2022, for security reasons. They began to be reconnected only at the end of September 2022 at the request of the public. Later, it became clear that some of them displayed incorrect information. The city has been unable to rectify this electronics issue for three years? Here’s the vision for the digitization of the capital presented by the relevant deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Petro Olenych, in an interview with "24 channel".
“At one time, Africa had no telephone communication, and when they started to implement it, mobile communication was already available.”
“When we began to implement technologies, our partner cities did this 15 years earlier. At that time, terminals and offline ticket purchases were relevant. We were implementing this during the active phase of smartphone and mobile technology development, which allowed doing this wirelessly,” – the interlocutor states.
However, we must not forget about inclusivity. Not everyone has smartphones, and some people do not wish to install applications. Therefore, there are alternative services.
“In fact, at each stop, there is a linked terminal, either at the stop itself or in the nearest shop. We have contracts with payment terminal networks,” adds Olenych. “But typically, in Kyiv, everyone buys tickets either on their smartphones or at a self-service point at the stop.”
It turns out that Kyiv has "skipped certain episodes