"All Aboard" the Green Line to Bistrița city

In the Historical Centre area of Bistrița there is no public transport lane. The city centre area is being suffocated by small vehicles, resulting in an unsightly appearance, aswell as a high concentration of polluting emissions with a negative impact on the quality of people's lives. This area is characterized by the existence of local public institutions, schools, but also by the functioning of the commercial and tourist area of the city; all of which being traffic generators.

With this in mind, Bistrita Municipality is implementing a series of urban mobility projects in order to develop a modern; efficient; safe; and "clean" public transportation system for the area. One of these is The "Green Line” public transport project to use ecological/electric means of transport in the area. This project is financed through the Regional Operational Program and being carried out over two years between March 2019 – March 2022.

The objective of the project is to ensure an efficient service of public passenger transport and to improve the conditions for the use of non-motorized ways of transport, in order to reduce the number of travels by private transport (private cars) and to reduce CO2 emissions from transport by configuring/ reconfiguring the urban streets infrastructure.

The solution proposed through this project is to create and develop a new route for urban public transport operated with ecological means of transport, respectively with electric buses, which will cross the town from west to east, through the city historical center. The route will ensure the transport of citizens from the outskirts of the city to the center, in a fast, clean and free of charge way, thus challenging them to give up their private cars.

Also, a policy of progressive parking taxes and a policy of gradually eliminating the motorized traffic in the historical center will be added.

Thus through this project the following will be achieved:

- dedicated lanes for the local means of public transport (electric buses)

- purchase of 10 electric buses

- building bicycle lanes and upgrading pedestrian routes

- upgrading of the cars transport lanes (the roadway part), as part of reconfiguration / configuration activity of urban streets with dedicated lanes

- building a depot for local public passenger transport by electric buses, with a command center for green line traffic management.

- purchase and set up of charging points for electric buses

- building and upgrading of public passenger transport stations

- creating a new public transport route.

The expected results after 5 years from the end of the project implementation:

-Decrease of the CO2 emissions – equivalent from the urban area, from the road transport by 2370 tones CO2 equivalent;

-Increase the number of passengers using urban public transport by 1,574,062 passengers;

-Increase the number of bicycle lanes users by 25,550 pers.