Thinking out loud. Who stole the blue trolleybus from us?

Scientific schools are liquidated in the country, scientific research institutes are closed. Tariffs are rising. The squeezed concession mechanism requires such state injections that it is cheaper without it. And besides, the concessionaires are not liable for tariffs. The state-owned leasing company has gigantic account balances and operates in a sort of selective nepotism format. The price of trams and trolleybuses looks prohibitive and for some reason higher than a bus.

The price of trams and trolleybuses looks prohibitive and for some reason higher than a bus. Bridges for trolleybuses remain imported. The thoughts of officials closer than China do not spin. Lithium batteries for electric buses are also imported. Their disposal is a difficult task. Yes, and lithium on Earth is running out.

80% of urban pollution comes from public transport. Electric transport is more environmentally friendly. It is used by people who live on a living wage and below. Nevertheless, it is not financed, but closed. They said that the wires interfere with enjoying the views of the city, but advertising structures interfere more. The shortcomings of the trolleybus are eliminated with the help of the construction of autonomous vehicles, but they are not supplied. The cities were filled with minibuses, increasing the accident rate. For some reason, the fare in a minibus is the same as in a trolleybus.

Leningrad could be traveled from end to end of the city for three kopecks by tram. Carry a stroller and small furniture on the back landing. Thirty years ago, public transport was broken up into rolling stock and infrastructure, handed out to different hands.

Urban public transport is a political problem. And yet, there is no federal targeted program for its development.

For three hours I listened to the speakers of parliamentary hearings on the topic: “On the state of urban public electric transport in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.” They were held on Thursday, October 6, by Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin in the Great Hall of Plenary Sessions. Volodin knows how to choose topical topics. He noted that urban electric transport is being discussed at the federal level for the first time. The representation of the participants in the hearings was literally inclusive – the relevant minister and the former minister in the status of assistant to the president, the trade union, mayors and governors, the state leasing company.

The moment of truth came due to the fact that Volodin gave the floor to Oksana Evdokimova, a trolleybus driver in the city of Orel. The reason turned out to be extremely simple – urban electric transport is stubbornly not financed, in no case admitting it. There is nothing to finance rusty trolleybuses. The driver’s salary is 25 thousand, and then if you go out on a day off to work.

There was a persistent impression of deja vu, intrusive and multiple. The same was seen in recent hearings on garbage. Exactly the same thing happened during the discussion on the absurd closure of electric trains. That problem has not been solved so far, the population was forced to come to terms with a change in lifestyle, the loss of their usual work or habitat.

Talk about the market and business entities somehow disappeared unnoticed. There was only one omnipotent economic entity represented by an unnamed state. If before they said that fish should be expensive, now they say that about everyone. The fish never came, and now the trolleybuses are sailing away.

Now the talk about the difficulties of import substitution and the environment is just as annoying, and it is clearly not about the case and not about that.

Here also draw conclusions who will be mistaken and who will guess. It seems to me that the point is not in the correctness of personal choice, but in the underestimated requirements of Russians for living conditions, in the right to work with decent pay, education, health care and housing.

Then the fish will come to Moscow, the port of the five seas, and the trolleybus will return, not the last and not accidental.

Lev MOSKOVKIN.