‘Give buses priority’ in new transport system

ANY new public transport system for Nicosia should give priority to buses as opposed to trams and shuttle trains.
This was the message from Nicosia Buses, who in particular criticised the possible introduction of a shuttle train along the Pedieos river as very expensive.
A shuttle train line from Lakatamia to the old Nicosia General Hospital would cost 200m euros, as much as it would cost to buy one thousand new buses," the announcement said. Asked by The Cyprus Weekly what prompted them to make the announcement, the Director General of Nicosia Buses, Costas Christodoulou, said that there have been various newspaper reports and public statements suggesting solutions to the traffic problem with which they did not agree.

Upgrading
"We are not against any other forms of public transport, but we firmly believe that it must start with the buses by upgrading both the vehicles as such and the services offered," he stressed.
To a remark what’s stopping Nicosia Buses from doing this by themselves, Christodoulou said that many things depended on the government setting out the technical specifications.
He recalled that the government had been working on public transport studies including the signing of what are called contract assignments with transport companies and added: "In the light of this, the Communications and Works Ministry of the new government has asked us not to make any new investments."

Aligning
In its announcement, the company noted that bus services could improve by aligning and increasing bus routes, running more hours and more frequently, introducing the park-and-ride system and providing electronic information to the public. Asked if the park-and-ride system could work since it would not help out-of-town commuters save any money now that petrol was so expensive and whether they should not consider running regional bus services instead, Christodoulou noted that, unfortunately, there were serious problems in doing this. "In the past we had suggested that all buses coming into town from each region should belong to a single transport company but we met with strong opposition from local interests," he explained.
As it is, there is almost one bus for every big village which takes the children to school in the town and back and perhaps runs an extra route during the day.
Urban traffic congestion is to great extent caused by thousands of people bringing their private cars into town from the regions for lack of effective public transport. Christodoulou noted that there was no government timetable to introduce much-needed improvements in public transport.
(Cyprus Weekly 22/4/08)