Open Letter To Mayor Kaladze

Op-Ed

Dear Mayor Kaladze,

Congratulations on your election and the best of luck in your new job. Now it’s time to get to work! I’m the author of the Bradt Travel Guide to Georgia and I’m currently in Georgia researching the 6th edition of this book. Three years ago, I wrote your predecessor, Davit Narmania, an open letter in this newspaper pointing out various problems with Tbilisi’s streets and its transport system and suggesting some ways to tackle them. Very little has been done since then, and the fundamental problem, the addiction of the Tbiliselebis to their cars, has clearly got worse.

There are various reasons for this, but one is that there is absolutely no real enforcement of parking restrictions and other traffic laws: people leave their vehicles wherever they want, on footways, in the middle of roadworks, blocking disabled access points. This is illegal, and in June 2016, your predecessor promised to clear the pavements/sidewalks of parked cars by September of that year. You’ll have noticed that this did not happen. It is simply a matter of enforcement. We know that the Georgian police can be reformed more or less overnight, and they have recently managed to crack down effectively on drink-driving. I think it’s time to do it again: instead of driving around with loudhailers telling stopped drivers to move on, they should enforce laws against using phones while driving, not wearing seatbelts (sitting on the lapbelt does not count), red-light jumping and speeding; and above all ticket, clamp or tow cars that are parked on the footways and sidewalks. The points-based driving license is a good start, but only if the police actually take an interest in these offences. And while you’re at it, tell them not to drive around with their emergency lights flashing - otherwise what have you got when it’s a real emergency? As in so many cases, Georgia needs to look at basic standard practice in the countries to the West. Somewhere like, oh, maybe Milano.

The problem, of course, is not just traffic congestion, the fact that it takes so long to get anywhere and then there’s nowhere to park when you get there; it’s also that it’s almost impossible to cycle in Tbilisi or to go out in a wheelchair, and it’s also the fact that the city’s air is foul and dangerous. Georgia has become a repository for Europe’s crappiest worn-out cars: half the cars in Tbilisi are apparently over 20 years old, and every day another 170 cars enter Georgia, 130 of which are over ten years old. Naturally, these are filthy - and as I’m sure you know, an International Energy Agency study identified Georgia as having the world’s highest mortality rate due to air pollution (household and outdoor) in 2012. I was astonished to hear that air pollution is checked at just three sites in Tbilisi, and not 24 hours a day (and that the government roadworthiness test was actually voluntary for over ten years). At least the government is finally acting to restrict the imports of right-hand-drive cars, which are obviously accidents waiting to happen.

The absence of an effective city planning system also creates huge problems - not just the aesthetic impact of out-of-place tower blocks suddenly appearing in residential districts, but also the number of vehicles that suddenly have to use those narrow residential streets, and to find parking spaces, not to mention the pollution caused by the construction process.

The city has to stop selling plots of land off for one Lari, whether to Bidzina Ivanishvili or anyone else, it doesn’t matter, but this just feeds the chaos. Roadworks are another disaster area in the city: I couldn’t believe that pedestrians had been forced to walk right on Rustaveli Avenue without any protective barriers for the time the Galleria mall has been under construction! It’s very easy to oblige contractors to install signs and barriers. Again, look at standard practice in the West.

In July 2017, your predecessor produced a Green City Action Plan, aiming to control congestion and construction, to improve bus services (including continuing to replace the old yellow buses with blue ones fueled by compressed natural gas, as well as introducing bus lanes and bus-priority traffic lights), and to produce a cycling strategy. I live in Cambridge, where over a quarter of the population cycles to work, and this is not unusual across Western Europe. Obviously, the kilometer-long cycle track on Pekini Avenue has attracted some derision, with people asking how on earth they’re meant to get to it, but do please stick with it! Yes, a cycling strategy has to be about getting people from door to door, on safe roads throughout, but it’s also important to have some visible headline projects to spread the message. But why is there no indication whether cycling is permitted in the contraflow bus lane on Davit Agmashenebeli Avenue? Why is there no cycle route through Rikhe Park, or behind the Public Service Hall? And, indeed, why can’t we have a riverside route the whole length of the city? Having double three-lane highways on either side of the Mtkvari just feeds the city’s car addiction.

But the first and simplest thing to do is to install cycle parking across the city (especially at schools and universities) and proper Sheffield Stands, please, not those thin things we see in a few places now that don’t actually support a bike.

In my letter of three years ago, I asked why so many buses terminated at Baratashvili Street - couldn’t they be linked up to allow longer, more useful journeys that people are currently using cars for? Likewise for the routes terminating at Orbeliani Square: link them up! Keep them moving! But alas, I see nothing has changed. I was in Ortachala the other day, wanting to go to Chugureti, but every single bus was going to Baratashvili Street. I know the ticket inspectors like to do all their checks there, but that’s really no reason for ALL the buses to go there.

At least the airport bus (route 37) is now operated by the bigger new blue buses, a huge help to all the people just trying to get from Rustaveli to Avlabari without waiting on Baratashvili Street. Speaking of the airport, the train is utterly pointless at the moment (I was the only passenger going all the way when I tried it out): to be any use, it has to run hourly (calling at Samgori and Didube for metro and marshrutka connections) to, say, Gori. If you were really ambitious, you could look for a Park-and-Ride site near Mtskheta.

And I haven’t even mentioned rubbish and recycling! You have lots to do, Mayor Kaladze - good luck!

Tim Burford

Illustration by Victoria Lomasko of drawingthetimes.com