Mayor Firea to purchase 500 new buses

Gabriela Firea announced plans to purchase 500 new buses to be added to the fleet of the public transportation system of the city of Bucharest. The Bucharest Mayor also said she scrapped plans to purchase second hand buses.

Speaking to online news outlet Hotnews.ro, Mayor Firea announced short-term plans to organize an international tender for the purchase of the first 300 buses. According to Firea, the tender book was completed on July 25 and tender procedures will be initiated within a few days. The mayor is planning to add another 200 hundred in the future. Initial plans to purchase second-hand buses were scrapped, the mayor told Hotnews.ro, because none of the producers could supply such a high number of vehicles.

After taking office, Firea announced plans to introduce free public transportation in Bucharest and stated she had made the modernization of Bucharest‘s public transportation system a priority of her mandate. When asked about the introduction of free transportation, Mayor Firea said full gratuity was a long-term goal, after the modernization of the transportation system. Moreover, she announced plans to make public transportation free before and after peak hours.

When asked about the amount of money to be paid by the City Hall to make up for the costs of tickets, Mayor Firea did not provide a sum and did not mention where the money would come from. The mayor pointed instead to the fact that the subsidy offered from the municipality budget for tickets, of almost 6 lei, is “very big”. Moreover, she stated that the staff selling tickets and other staff would not be made redundant, but would be hired instead as supervisors.

According to the mayor, the steps to be followed are: “firstly the purchase of buses, modernization and refurbishment of the buses making up the fleet and only afterwards an analysis, starting with a pilot project for gratuity before and peak hours, as it happened in Paris. Moreover, I want very much to be in the position to have, as soon as possible, a separate lane for public transportation where buses, taxis, ambulances, the police and other emergency cars can drive,” the Bucharest mayor stated.