“Gavigudet” Attended the Meeting of the Working Group Promoting the Improvement of the Atmospheric Air Quality of Tbilisi Agglomeration
“Gavigudet” Attended the Meeting of the Working Group Promoting the Improvement of the Atmospheric Air Quality of Tbilisi Agglomeration
In 2020, with the amendment of the Law of Georgia on Air Protection, the territory of Georgia was divided into zones and agglomerations to manage the air quality in the country.
Currently, an air quality management action plan is being developed for the agglomeration of Tbilisi. Today, on November 24th, our group attended the second meeting of the working group regarding the plan.
This plan is being developed with the involvement of Georgian and foreign experts and advisors, and at today’s meeting, foreign experts presented the additional measures that are included in the action plan.
On today’s meeting, 22 activities were presented for consideration, which were adapted to the most problematic sectors for the city of Tbilisi in terms of air pollution, i.e. – the transport sector, construction sector, and the issue of raising environmental awareness is also considered.
Some of these activities serve to strengthen/facilitate the enforcement of existing laws.
Regarding the meeting and the purpose of our involvement within this plan;
Our movement always highlights the problem of intercity transport between Rustavi and Tbilisi.
The daily flow of passengers between the two cities is so big that the existing transportation system is not enough and people have to wait in queues for a long time, especially during peak hours. This problem was not alleviated even by the buses appointed to the direction of Isani 1 year ago. This is what pushes more and more people from Rustavi to buy a private car for daily travels to Tbilisi and back.
Given the fact, that the transport sector is the main source of air pollution for Tbilisi, the additional cars arriving from Rustavi represent an even greater load and become an additional source of pollution.
Increasing the frequency of public transport and the area that this transport will cover in cities will significantly reduce this problem and, accordingly, the level of air pollution from vehicles, both in the capital and in Rustavi.
We have been advocating this issue for a long time, including during the development of the Action Plan on the Air Quality Improvement in the Central Zone (which includes Rustavi), however, as the representatives of the Ministry explained at the time, the development of activities related to this problem would be relevant within the framework of the Tbilisi Agglomeration Action Plan, since working on this issue is the responsibility of Tbilisi city hall.
Accordingly, at the meeting we asked what specific activities are taken into account to solve the problem of intercity transport.
As the experts and representatives of the Ministry told us, within the framework of the action plan, work on this issue will continue and opinions will be received regarding the issue of intercity transport.
We hope that attention will be paid to this issue in the Action Plan on the Air Quality Improvement in Tbilisi Agglomeration and relevant activities/measures will be developed to solve this problem.