Tbilisi Mayor presents 2-year activity report

Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze has presented a report on the activities of the last two years. Kaladze addressed the participants of the event and thanked them for their two-year support.

“It has been two years since we were elected by the majority of the population of Tbilisi and we have officially begun to exercise our authority. During these two years, we have implemented many very interesting and vitally important projects for the city,” stated Kaladze.

The mayor of the capital thanked Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on behalf of Tbilisi residents as he said the 2020 budget would reach a record high.

“We will spend about 1.3 billion GEL for next year's projects. The 2020 budget will increase by 300 million GEL, which means that we will carry out 300 million GEL worth of important projects. Of course, we're not going to stop there,” he noted.

According to him, in the budget of 2020 infrastructure projects, health and social direction remain a priority issue. He noted that about 27-28% of the budget will be directed to health and social projects. Mayor of the capital thanked ordinary citizens who worry about Tbilisi’s problems and noted that his team is doing everything to solve them.

Members of the government, MPs and Tbilisi City Council members, as well as business and cultural representatives and experts attended the presentation of the biennial report of the mayor of Tbilisi.

According to a summary of Tbilisi City Hall's two-year work, the capital's fleet of 347 buses was refurbished in, with the number reaching 453 by the end of the year.

As stated in the report, one of the important facts is that since 2018, instead of City Park, the function of parking operator has been transferred to Tbilisi Transport Company Ltd. The company has set up the relevant structural units and production base. The model of parking management of the vehicle has been completely changed, thus managing the parking process. The new system of zone-hour parking is being implemented in the central districts of the city.

According to them, the Tbilisi government and the City Council have developed step-by-step and comfortable rules for regulating the taxi sector. At the same time, the government of the capital explains that in parallel with the development of public transport, the consumption of private transport will gradually be reduced, which will unload the streets from traffic jams and improve the environmental background caused by the emissions.

A new project - Sharing Car has been introduced in the capital, which creates an environmentally friendly way to move to Tbilisi. It is also noteworthy that the City Hall has signed an agreement with the French research organization Sistras, which will present each district and passenger-oriented transport scheme to the municipality in the near future. It will be possible to synchronize metro, bus and minibus routes together.

The total cost of the project is ˆ 790,000, of which ˆ 490,000 is a European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) grant, and $ 300,000 from City Hall funding.

In addition, Kaladze says the process of fully replacing the yellow buses is ongoing. By the year 2020, various capacity buses will be replaced in the capital and in total there will be 753 new modern European buses in the buses. By mobilizing existing resources, Tbilisi City Hall was able to add 10 new routes in 2018 and extend 15 routes. In 2019, two new ones were opened and seven routes were extended. In addition, within the framework of the Night Economy Project, The "Night Bus" pilot project was launched.