The TomTom resource published the 2019 Transport Traffic Index, according to the results of which Kiev took 12th place, which is one step lower than last year. The average annual “congestion” of the capital’s roads is 53%, the worst situation on the roads was January 23, 2019 – then the figure was 132%, the best – on April 28, when Ukrainians celebrated Easter and loaded roads only by 7%.
For a year, Kyivites lost 227 hours in traffic jams. As the authors of the study jokingly calculated, during this time it was possible to knit 57 caps or 10 sweaters, bake almost 11 thousand cookies, watch 201 episodes of the Game of Thrones or re-read “Searching for Lost Time” by Marcel Proust, consisting of seven volumes, one and a half times 4211 pages long.
“Recently, the Kyiv City State Administration announced that it will not build new parking lots and will increase tariffs on existing five times. The news is very unexpected, but quite logical. And I really want this time for the KSCA to succeed, because all their attempts to create a network of intercepting parking lots ended in nothing: six intercepting parking lots for 649 places is not a network. Say, only in the Lavina Mall shopping center, which is located near one of the intercepting parking lots, there are 1308 places,” says Andriy Ryzhykov, CEO and managing partner of DC Evolution.
According to Pragmatika.Media, the capitalization level of the capital is 360 cars per 1000 inhabitants, but already in 2025, Skyscraper writes, it can reach 450 cars – that is, almost 2 million cars for the whole city.
“In order not to become hostages of growing motorization, the life of a motorist must be uncomfortable and expensive. But, of course, only if certain conditions are met: you need to create a man-centered city and develop public transport. In addition, we must stop building sleeping bags and begin to realize full-fledged places for living, because the concept of “separate sleeping bags, separate working places, separate entertainment” is breaking the city and makes it extremely uncomfortable,” adds Andriy Ryzhykov.
According to the expert, high-rise construction should help. Vertical cities can condense a large number of people, while increasing the comfort of their lives: there will also be squares and parks, public spaces and pedestrian infrastructure. But the main thing is that you don’t need to go anywhere every day, which means there will be less traffic jams.