Yessimov declares 2013 the year of public transport

The year 2013 has been declared the year of public transport development in Almaty, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Almaty Akim (Mayor) Akhmetzhan Yessimov as saying at the annual meeting with the citizens. "What do you think about making this year the year of public transport development?" Yessimov asked. According to the Akim, 55.1 billion tenge ($367 million) were allocated from the budget for development of transport infrastructure in 2012. This money was spent on repairing city streets and roads. The works covering 80 percent of all the roads in the city. Besides, 16 bus-stop road bays were built and repaired, 2.9 kilometers of sidewalks along 13 streets were repaired. Medium repairs were performed on 392 city streets that made 224km in total. Besides, new roads were built in Novostroika, Karassu and Bakai regions. Almaty administration is planning to limit access of transport from other cities to Almaty. In this relation, the administration have developed a plan on construction of four specialized bus fleets and two taxi fleets. The city will have several ecological posts where the cars will be checked for excessive toxic emissions.