From October 1, the Plovdiv municipality is introducing a low-emission zone in the city center, similar to Sofia. The restrictive ring in Plovdiv will be valid for seven months, not six, as in the capital, and at least in the first weeks it will not rely on cameras and electronic control, but on employees of the municipal enterprise “Parking and Repatriation“, writes bTV.
The measure is extremely controversial and has caused a wave of discontent - so far only on social networks.
From October 1 to April 30, in the quadrangle between the central boulevards “Tsar Boris the Third Unifier“, “Shesti septembri“, “Ruski“ and “Hristo Botev“, the movement of diesel cars manufactured before 2007, and gasoline – before 1998.
„I don't think it's appropriate, because, as you can see, Bulgaria has an extremely high percentage of old vehicles. And this restriction will make it difficult for many citizens of Plovdiv“, says Georgi Terziev.“Then let's drive rickshaws... There is one... a rickshaw like me. With a cart. Can I move around with a cart? Human traction will pull this... I'm ready, yes“, comments Mihail Mumdzhiev.““People's old cars are getting in the way - they can reach down the poor man's throat and pull out his mouthful. That's the whole point”, says Petar Lesov.“
For now, the municipality plans to install only signboards. The electronic automatic control system will not start due to an appeal against the public procurement. The control will be carried out by the blue zone employees.
“Initially, we will notify the violators by phone in order to introduce the zone more smoothly, to avoid this social tension where it exists. But it is important for us that the air in Plovdiv is clean and that people are healthy“, says Ivan Stoyanov, Deputy Mayor for Ecology of the Municipality of Plovdiv.
“Such low-emission zones can be useful for the city. They exist in many European cities, where they really reduce pollution. But Plovdiv is doing it in a very wrong way and the biggest symptom of this is that the public procurement, which was for electronic devices to track cars, we are talking about software, we are talking about cameras – was actually failed. And now, from October 1st, we will have a crippled system in which, notice, municipal employees will go to monitor which cars are polluting or not – which is almost physically impossible“, commented Vladimir Slavenski, municipal councilor from the PP-DB group in Plovdiv.
The introduction of the low-emission zone is due to air pollution. Plovdiv is one of the European cities with the highest content of fine dust particles.
However, critics dispute the real benefit of this measure due to ineffective control in the ghettos, where cables and tires are burned, due to problematic public transport and heating with solid fuels.
„The whole thing is to collect fines. This is the truth. They think of laws supposedly in favor of the people, on the contrary - they are in favor of them to line their pockets“, says Petar Lesov.
„Many things, I repeat, in our municipality are done to absorb some money. Which are poorly utilized“, commented Vladimir Slavenski.
“The money is from European funds – over 2 million euros. We have fully complied with the decisions of the municipal council. But I want to emphasize that in Bulgaria only the municipality of Sofia and the municipality of Plovdiv are beneficiaries of this program. And only we are building low-emission zones“, says Ivan Stoyanov.
The first offenders will only be warned by phone, but then sanctions will follow.
“From 25.56 euros to 500 euros and 29 cents... It depends on the frequency of violations“, says Ivan Stoyanov.
The municipality explains why the winter restriction is in effect for seven months.
“The stations that show that there is an excess from October to April imposed this term, which was adopted by a decision of the municipal council“, says Ivan Stoyanov.
The restriction will not apply to the boulevards that outline the border of the zone.