10 million allocated to finance free routes in Odesa

On November 11, the Executive Committee of the Odesa City Council proposed to the Odesa City Military Administration to provide funding for bus maintenance in the amount of almost UAH 10 million by the end of the year.

As noted during the meeting of the executive committee, the money is planned under the program "Road Safety.

It is about the introduction of free routes in Odesa, which will use 20 humanitarian buses donated to Odesa by the twin cities of Regensburg and Istanbul, which are currently unavailable for regular routes. The routes are still being developed.

Earlier, the head of the Odesa City Military Administration, Serhiy Lysak, instructed the city to develop social routes for certain categories of residents to use the humanitarian buses.

Earlier, Petro Obukhov , chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport and Roads of the Odesa City Council, said that Mercedes buses, which Odesa received as humanitarian aid from the partner cities of Regensburg and Istanbul and which were waiting on the streets after the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed a law allowing their use, have not been put on the road. According to him, in order for the buses to be used after the law is passed, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine must approve the procedure for transferring these buses to municipal enterprises. According to the law, the procedure was supposed to take only two months, and five months have passed, but there is still no government decision.

For a long time, 20 modern Mercedes buses have been idle in the fleet of the Odesmiselectrotrans utility company, which Odesa received as humanitarian aid from the partner cities of Regensburg and Istanbul. Due to legal restrictions, these buses could not go on routes. And a similar situation is observed throughout Ukraine - more than 300 such vehicles remain immobile in different cities.

Back in the spring of 2024, the Odesa City Council appealed to the Ministry of Infrastructure to solve the problem. It was supported by the Association of Ukrainian Cities, and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov raised the issue on behalf of the Association at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President.

Odesa received ten buses from the sister city of Regensburg, followed by ten more modern buses from Istanbul.

Кирило Бойко