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Sat, Feb 11 2012
Blog: Varna - and Bulgaria - have had their fill of potholes
Photo: Julia Lazarova
Bulgarian streets are infamous for their dilapidated state – they not only damage vehicles, but they also cause accidents as people try to dodge them, on occasion swerving into the oncoming lane, causing collisions, serious injury and even deaths. The people of Varna, however, have had enough.
Varna is up in arms, with citizens demanding that they meet mayor Kiril Yordanov on March 3, Bulgarian National (BNT) Television reported.
The Varna Prosecution Office has launched a comprehensive investigation to check on the state of roads and streets, prompted by the dire straits of the road network in Varna and the widespread discontent that this has caused.
According to Vyara Alexieva, spokesperson for the Varna Prosecution Office, the investigation in Varna is a part of a widespread operation across Bulgaria ordered by the Supreme Administrative Prosecution Office and covering the last six months of 2008 and the whole year 2009.
Bulgarian-language mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa said on March 3 2010 that the results of the operation will be made available by May 10 2010. The potholes in Varna triggered a wave of public protests some weeks ago, prompting Yordanov to dismiss Rositsa Kirova from the her post at the municipality's investment policy department.
The situation in Sofia is similarly dire. Never mind small inner-borough streets that are virtually impassable, the pavements for pedestrians are in even worse condition.
Major boulevards in Sofia, like Tsar Boris III, in places resemble a war zone, with craters enough to cause serious damage to a vehicle, an accident and serious injury.
Sections of the Sofia Ring Road are also in extremely poor condition. Even elite boroughs, like Sofia's Lozenets, near the Fourth Police Station feature streets covered in holes. Residents of Sofia's borough of Lagera say that the municipality installed brand new traffic signs last year on all inner streets, but the streets themselves resemble a lunar surface.
"We have new traffic signs now, but we don't have any streets," residents told The Sofia Echo.
The problems are not limited to Lozenets and Lagera. This is the reality in every corner of Sofia, every city, town and village of Bulgaria.
And while the municipality spent money in the summer of 2009 to fix the pavements on some central boulevards in Sofia city centre, such as Patriarch Evtimii, someone from the municipality did not bother to think about issuing an order banning vehicles from parking on the pavements.
The outcome – new pavements less than a year old have crumbled and are already covered in holes from the weight of the cars parked on top of them.
For as long as this is allowed to continue, authorities will keep on repairing infrastructure only for it to be destroyed a year later. The funds for the repair of roads and pavements can be easily collected. There are thousands of traffic and parking violations committed on our streets everyday, but somehow the authorities have failed to exploit this golden goose.
The streets can be fixed, and the money can be raised, only if someone is willing to put a little thought into it.
Varna is up in arms, with citizens demanding that they meet mayor Kiril Yordanov on March 3, Bulgarian National (BNT) Television reported.
The Varna Prosecution Office has launched a comprehensive investigation to check on the state of roads and streets, prompted by the dire straits of the road network in Varna and the widespread discontent that this has caused.
According to Vyara Alexieva, spokesperson for the Varna Prosecution Office, the investigation in Varna is a part of a widespread operation across Bulgaria ordered by the Supreme Administrative Prosecution Office and covering the last six months of 2008 and the whole year 2009.
Bulgarian-language mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa said on March 3 2010 that the results of the operation will be made available by May 10 2010. The potholes in Varna triggered a wave of public protests some weeks ago, prompting Yordanov to dismiss Rositsa Kirova from the her post at the municipality's investment policy department.
The situation in Sofia is similarly dire. Never mind small inner-borough streets that are virtually impassable, the pavements for pedestrians are in even worse condition.
Major boulevards in Sofia, like Tsar Boris III, in places resemble a war zone, with craters enough to cause serious damage to a vehicle, an accident and serious injury.
Sections of the Sofia Ring Road are also in extremely poor condition. Even elite boroughs, like Sofia's Lozenets, near the Fourth Police Station feature streets covered in holes. Residents of Sofia's borough of Lagera say that the municipality installed brand new traffic signs last year on all inner streets, but the streets themselves resemble a lunar surface.
"We have new traffic signs now, but we don't have any streets," residents told The Sofia Echo.
The problems are not limited to Lozenets and Lagera. This is the reality in every corner of Sofia, every city, town and village of Bulgaria.
And while the municipality spent money in the summer of 2009 to fix the pavements on some central boulevards in Sofia city centre, such as Patriarch Evtimii, someone from the municipality did not bother to think about issuing an order banning vehicles from parking on the pavements.
The outcome – new pavements less than a year old have crumbled and are already covered in holes from the weight of the cars parked on top of them.
For as long as this is allowed to continue, authorities will keep on repairing infrastructure only for it to be destroyed a year later. The funds for the repair of roads and pavements can be easily collected. There are thousands of traffic and parking violations committed on our streets everyday, but somehow the authorities have failed to exploit this golden goose.
The streets can be fixed, and the money can be raised, only if someone is willing to put a little thought into it.
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The city hall of the Black Sea city of Varna was sentenced to pay more than 2000 leva to insurer Uniqa, Bulgarian-language Sega daily said on October 23 2008. The company sued the city hall after one of its clients drove his motor vehicle into a pothole in March 2006, the paper said. Varna Regional Court ruled on October 22 that it was the city hall's responsibility to keep the street in order and should pay Uniqa the cost of the damages on the vehicle of 1449 leva. The city hall will have to also cover the court fees, which raised the total sum the city hall should pay to 2079 leva.
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Taxi drivers in the city of Shoumen in north-western Bulgaria say that they will take court action against the municipality because of the bad state of the roads. The statement follows an incident in which a taxi fell into a large pothole and the driver's arm was injured by an airbag.
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A neon sign flashes the words out over the capital in colossal yellow letters: "Keep walking!" A wry comment about the state of the pavements? Do you have to be three sheets to the wind to obey them? Absolutely. What a cheerful thought. Break a leg, Johnnie Walker! Well at least we've got that straight for the more cynical among you. No, the sign really isn't a twisted government health warning:
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yes yes
I always watch with amusement when I see the potholes being done `cos U know that after any bad weather they re-appear, which means the workmen are back again the next year doing exactly the same holes. Keeps them in work doesn`t it. As to water supply, I am lucky in my village it is rare for the supply to be interupted; however just 2 villages away a friend is without water regularly, for up to 5 days a week, this has been the same for 2 years; The villagers dont worry `cos nearly all have their own wells and [...]
Read the full comment when they dried up last summer a lot of produce was lost and still no complaints. I am glad I dont libe there `cos I would be banging on the mayors door everyday
Hi Bob yes we have some nice palm trees lining the road they used them to fill some of the holes up in the pavement, looks nice now.
To move on, i was stpped by KAT police today for a document check, my technical (MOT) was out of date, its a 50 leva fine, i dont mind as its my mistake but he couldnt fill the fine in as my documents are in the latin alphabet, howabout we make every visitor or non-Bulgarian resident have cyrillic documents so the fines can be collected, if you lot are so unhappy why are you still here.
Just bent a wheel in a pot hole on the road out of Sofia towards Rernik, my glass is half full though, couldnt get the wheel nuts to move, mechanic's lada turned up, he used his own kit, got them undone and made sure i was ok at no charge, that wouldnt have hapened in the UK.
Municipality trucks were out at 3 am filling in what they could,
Its going to cost me 5 leva to get the wheel fixed, come on its not that bad
totally agree with these comments. Have you tried driving in, through, and out of Yambol? We went in there to pay our vignette and damaged our car because of the state of the roads. What are they doing with this money? Does the EU realise that their money is not being wisely spent?
Why do you complain? only last year the City of Varna provided you with beautiful palm trees lining the road to the airport. Also there is a great sculpture for the tourists and many small magazines have been paved over for new shopping malls.
Roads and pedestrian paths are trivial matters only used by citizens. The tourists spend a lot of leva in our casinos and discos, so stop being so selfish!
went to pay my local taxes in the Varna office stood there for ages.Then all of a sudden the hatches came down all the staff went outside for a fag and coffee.
why cant they use there brains and stagger the breaks so there is always someone to take your money I walked out and still have not paid do they not want our money.
What is the point of making new footpaths and then letting cars park on them.
What a load of idiots.
I can only imagine that the roads are not repaired in an attempt to keep the speeds down which does work......even in france
huib van den doel - your answer is simple. Bulgarians in general are and remain afraid of local authorities!!
They see them as a threat rather than as a legitimate element/source in order to improve or progress their lives and social well being.
Fine, let the people of Varna go on, also kick out Yordanov instead of having hime use some civil servant as a scapegoat. The problem, however is with Bulgarians themselves, who meekly accept anything. I regularly see public services get away with things that would have West-Europeans blockade offices, block telephone exchanges and slap officials in the face.
One example: some years ago in the village where I spend the summer, the water supply failed. Nobody protested - people just went to relieve themselves in their gardens and went for water to the public well. When [...]
Read the full comment asked why nobody did anything, the answer was "Oh, it's no use", after which followed a staggering sequence of rationalizations, which led me to the conclusion the the main creative talent of many Bulgarians is in arguing why it is no use to do anything when public services mess up. In the end it was up to me to make the round of waterworks, ministries etc. In the end, my threats worked. But we expats all know, that in Europe all hell would have been loose within a day.
I don't believe Bulgaria is a poor Country, rather poorly managed.
The critical element of any road is the foundation; and if you don't remove the water, it will simply get beneath the compacted foundation gravel and weaken the underlaying foundation elements;hence the bitumen no loner has a solid base to maintain traffic weight (holes will eventually develop).
The only solution is to rip up an entire section of road, re compact this part, then put in place suitable drainage system. It is absolutely critical to get the water from the road [...]
Read the full comment surface. The other issue is the road repairers are using cold mix rather than hotmix. Cold asphalt mixtures are manufactured at ambient temperatures, on the order of 20o to 50oC (68o to 122oF), while hot-mix asphalt is typically produced in the range of 140o to 170oC (284o to 338oF). Warm mixes are those generally produced in the temperature range of 105o to 135oC (220o to 275oF). Hot-mix asphalt has higher stability and durability than cold-mix asphalt, which is why cold mix is used in the lower pavement layers of low-volume roadways. Most if not all the local road patching are using cold mix rather than hotmix since overall it is much cheaper. I bet they are invoicing for the later. Cold mix contains diesel, for this reason it is less stable than Hotmix since it takes much more time to cure. In the meantime during the curing process it is already subjected to heavy traffic; effectively meaning it will deteriorate rather quickly. Furthermore, when temps reach above 37 C easily during a BG summer, the cold mix will begin to break down.
In terms of the "footpath" the mistake local authorities shave made is to use pavers. This is not suffice. Concrete must be used in these areas in order to take the load when cards park in this area which is common.
i pay road tax.where is that money going.if i damage my tyres in pot-holes,how do i claim for the damage.where do i go,same old story
we want your money not your complaints,we are a poor country and our only source of income is ex-pats coming here buying run-down houses then getting riped of by the bulgarian goverment.only for the ex-pat you would not be where you are today,give us a break
i pay road tax.where is that money going.if i damage my tyres in pot-holes,how do i claim for the damage.where do i go,same old story
we want your money not your complaints,we are a poor country and our only source of income is ex-pats coming here buying run-down houses then getting riped of by the bulgarian goverment.only for the ex-pat you would not be where you are today,give us a break
People have short memories. When I came to live in Bulgaria just over 6 years ago the roads were much worse than they are now. The roads are a disgrace but so are the hospitals, the water system, the state of the rivers/drainage systems etc etc. No one wants to pay taxes, the mafia are robbing the country ablely assist by some politicians and yet people expect the the infrastructure to be good. Perhaps they can explain where the money is coming from to make the necessary repairs ?
Bravo! ...problem is some thought'd be a fine thing!
Are you reading this, Fandukova?