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The assessment of public transport in the capital divides Vilnius residents into two camps: for some, such a connection is adequate and they do not see any major problems. For others, it is tragic: the buses and trolleybuses are old, a really complicated dinner, there are very few routes and there are cat tears in the vehicles. Sociological polls bring everyone together: 99 percent. considers that the communication of the capital residents in the capital is a current or very current problem.
Water brought in a handful
The “fathers” of the capital do not forget to show off at every opportunity by buying new buses and trolleybuses, planning new routes, building North miles of new bike and scooter trails
However, we respect the wisdom of the people, who seeing so many efforts, would immediately remind us: from the water that you brought in a handful, the mill circle will not begin to turn …
Since the 20th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Vilnius transport was the site of a stepdaughter. At the beginning of the century, the wagons competed here with three cone lines, at the end, the same wagons, only named more modern, in French, taxis, and several dozen bus and trolleybus lines. Even the money from the tram was stolen at the Bezdonys train station by a great dreamer of the Lithuanian-Polish state from sea to sea, Juzef Pilsudski, so we even ran out of tram. We can only rejoice on Tramvajų Street, only its inhabitants know such an existence only neb
However, it is still necessary to drive, so as soon as the opportunity arose, Vilnius residents sat in cars without waiting for anything. Only the streets of the old town, as designed in Duke Gediminas’ dream, remained that way, and the Naujamiestis designers built their own taking into account the level of automation of the Žiguliai, Moskvičiai and Zaporozhye eras.
Unfortunately, it all ends one day, so the era of communist builders with half-empty streets inevitably ends: as if a modern crown has caught up with us in a congestion pandemic.
History teaches us only one …
Today the German philosopher F. Engels, completely unpopular in our country, quite rightly observed a regularity: “History teaches us only one thing: it never learned anything from us.” After all, if she had learned something from us, we would have realized immediately: if there is at least no tolerable public transport in the city, residents will inevitably buy cars. And the poorer the public transport, the more people will buy it! History would have amiably taught us that the consequences would be sad: congestion would inevitably form in the narrow streets of ancient cities, and the number of accidents and casualties would inevitably increase. . The “bosses” of foreign cities, who respected at least a little history and sought to learn from the mistakes of strangers rather than the much more expensive ones, began to deal with public transport half a century ago. Trams first appeared in those cities, and later, when it was noticed that they did little to solve the congestion problem, they were driven underground – thus the subway was born.
Saved the elite
But we didn’t need one or the other! Why? I didn’t find the answer in Lithuania, but it was provided by EU economists, who closely followed the development of the “New Europe” (traditionally seen in the European Union as a market for cheap and unskilled labor for rich countries. “old” – EU members). His conclusion was implacable: “After the accession of the Baltic countries to the European Union, labor migration saved the elites of these countries from the need to take the economy and the social sphere seriously.” Perhaps the most obvious thing is that this truth is confirmed by the social inequality index: we are leading here with almost no competition!
Note – take economics and the social sphere seriously. And what did we do? We did not rejoice in our freedom in any way and we became as trustworthy as the readers of some newspapers who believed in horoscopes. We blindly believed what the agile election winners promised us, and when they saw that they were going to cut where they were doing nothing, we awaited the next election, which in three decades became a Lithuanian celebration of hatred and billing.
Yet even in them, we have naively forgotten that man moves (like water flows) down the path of least resistance. Creating new public transport systems in the capital is terrible lapels. And a terrible risk. The mandates of the elect are very brief; there is no guarantee that you will be chosen a second or even a third time. What awaits you if you dedicate yourself to a wonderful project, but one that will last ten years? Most likely someone else will use your merits, a person or a competing party. But if you fail, you will definitely be to blame. No thanks … Let someone else, not as smart as me.
However, proving that you are working, however, is necessary, otherwise it may fall into the hands of some immature journalist who, instead of asking the right questions, will do something uncomfortable. That’s when the elite benefit from water flowing down the path of least resistance. Became Dsustainable mobility “systems” creation. Wonderful project: someone say that no one in Lithuania cares about communication. Only thanks to this plan new buses were purchased and several tens of kilometers of bike and scooter paths were built. And it doesn’t matter at all that those buses run as infrequently as the old ones. That bicycle traffic is only possible in the center of the capital or in some remote area … That the cycling season in Lithuania is, at best, from April to October, a little over half a year.
The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, a document of more than 1000 pages, was prepared by 16 institutions, organizations, uab… Many specialists and experts who work in them have created a vision “TRAVEL IN VILNIUS – FUN, SAFE AND COMFORTABLE. A beautiful vision, so to speak, is wonderful, like the dream of Soviet government communism. However, you read those pages and you see that the only suggestion on how to solve the problem of public transport in Vilnius is coercion: close, raise the price, ban, reduce … More – offer a trip in a more conscious way.
The impression is that the plan developers have here forgotten that cars account for 92% of total traffic. all vehicles. Coercion is perhaps the correct model of government somewhere in the penal colony, and in a free society, the elementary political alphabet is persuasion. Best of all, it offers something faster, safer, cheaper and more environmentally friendly …
Vilnius’s population grows by about 1% every year and the number of vehicles by 3%. It’s not shrinking, as mobility advocates hope, it’s increasing, and no cosmetic change will save our transportation system – we’ll be in traffic jams and curses. And to those who expect it to be different, I will remind them of the old wisdom: hope: a great breakfast, but a bad dinner …
Kęstutis Bruzgelevičius
The opinion of the editor does not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the reader.
