THE Municipality of Nicosia and the Ministry of Communication and Works are gearing up to change the behaviour of commuters in the capital — through mass transit systems and new law enforcement policies.
The current ‘every-man-for-himself’ one car-one driver system has proven inefficient, burdening the island’s towns with congestion and air and noise pollution, while public transport has done little to pick up the slack.
Among the strategies under investigation are light rail, an overhaul of the urban bus system, and new law enforcement techniques, such as laws to fine people driving with under a minimum number of people in their car during rush hour.
As a first step towards modernising the island’s mass transit system, the Ministry of Communications and Works and the Nicosia Municipality has invited two transportation experts from England and France to discuss the pros and cons of light rail and modernised bus systems at a seminar next Saturday at the Holiday Inn in Nicosia.
“With this seminar, we are trying to get the people more into the idea of mass movement,” said Dinos Constantinou, the president of the Cyprus Association of Degree Holders (SEPTAK), which organises seminars on topics of interest to municipalities.
“We think it is time to look very seriously into improving mass transit, because it is impossible to leave the situation as it is now,” he said. “We have to see if we can introduce this type of mass transit or improve the buses or improve law enforcement.”
He envisions a system that would “start from the outskirts to bring people into the city centre so that people will leave their cars at home”.
But, reviewing the options, he warns that light rail is very expensive –the tracks alone costing an estimated £6 to £12 million per kilometre — and may cause problems because the system is inflexible once it has been put into place.
“Personally, I think that we should concentrate on improving bus services,” he told the Sunday Mail.
“There is a whole revolution about urban buses,” Contantinou said of new battery-powered vehicles that better their predecessors by using less energy, offering more flexibility, being more attractive and more accessible to people with handicaps.
He feels that one of the best options could be ‘mini trams’, the battery-powered buses that carry about 50 passengers each and which will go into operation in Stratford on Avon by the end of this year. He said this technology avoids problems such as increasing electricity dependency or having to lay down rail tracks.
Constantinou said that the whole image of the public transport system needs an overhaul. He pointed out that their markings make it easy to confuse urban buses with the rural variety, and suggested that the current policy of operating the buses through private companies may not be in the best interests of the public.
Meanwhile, the Greens are staging a protest this weekend in favour of alternate forms of transportation, namely more paths and extra lanes for bicycles. They will meet at 10am today outside the Mountain Climbers Club in Limassol.
Future SEPTAK talks will focus on sewage waste management and the influx of foreign workers to the island.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
