The False Promise of Solving Traffic Jams on Baghramyan Street

Thirteen months ago the RA Road Police issued a statement in which they promised to make changes in the organization of traffic on Baghramyan-Moskovyan intersection in order to ensure considerable and quick unloading of the intersection.

In contrast to the changes in organization of traffic in other intersections, this one required that the RA Municipality build a triangle, around 50 square meter safety island (see the picture).

And though the scheme of traffic organization in the intersection has been ready for more than 13 months, even the construction works have not started yet.

We were informed by the RA Road Police that they are waiting for the safety island to be built by Yerevan Municipality in order for them to be able to change road markings and traffic lights later. In response to our inquiry, the Municipality staff told us that they are still doing design works.

So, according to the Yerevan Municipality, one year was not enough to design a triangular green space with an area of 50 square meters and including a curb of 40 linear meters… It is worth noting here that the construction of Eiffel Tower in Paris took only 2 years, while the Yerevan Municipality was not able to construct a safety island in the middle of an asphalt road (or at least start the construction) in one year.

With modern technologies at hand, the design of such a “structure” should have taken 1-2 days, and the construction – one week.

Hence, we can rightfully claim that the design of improvement of that intersection remained on the level of a statement because it cannot take one whole year to design something that a schoolchild would be able to do during one lesson.

And so long as the issue of reorganization of that intersection is not solved, the residents of Yerevan will have to spend time and fuel on traffic jams of Baghramyan ave.

P.S. We tried to contact the relevant departments of Yerevan Municipality in order to find out the reasons for such a delay but in vain…