Bus and minibus fees in the Armenian capital have stood at 100 drams (25 U.S. cents) per ride for over two decades. Mayor Tigran Avinian announced a year ago plans to replace them with a complex tariff system involving electronic payments for season tickets. Avinian and other municipality officials said that higher bus fares are necessary for cutting losses incurred by Yerevan’s transport network and buying more buses needed by it.
The unpopular measure has been repeatedly delayed since then amid strong resistance from opposition members of the city council. Avinian’s office said last month that it will take effect on February 1.
Commuters will have to pay 8,800 drams ($22) per month, 23,600 drams per quarter and 88,000 drams per annum for an unlimited number of bus, trolleybus or metro rides. A ticket valid for 90 minutes will cost around 300 drams. Various categories of the population, including children, university students and pensioners, will be eligible for price discounts.
Marutian’s National Progress party and the other opposition group represented in the council, the Mayr Hayastan bloc, are continuing to actively campaign against the new tariffs. They maintain that the municipal transport system can be revamped with the existing fares.
Mayr Hayastan collected last fall enough signatures to force an emergency session of the council that would discuss its demands for the scrapping of the price hikes. The ruling Civil Contract party, of which Avinian is a senior member, its local coalition partner as well as nominally independent councilors boycotted the session slated for Tuesday, thus preventing the municipal legislature from making a quorum. Civil Contract issued a statement accusing the opposition forces of exploiting the issue for political purposes.
Mayr Hayastan said earlier that it could try to collect a larger number of citizens’ signatures that would legally require the authorities to hold a referendum on the issue. National Progress favors a different course of action, urging Yerevan residents to simply refuse to pay more for the bus tickets starting next month.
“The people’s demands are really just because this [price hike] is a state racket,” Marutian said on Tuesday. “People just cannot afford to pay that much.”
The former mayor and television comedian was actively involved in a similar campaign in 2013. It was triggered by the then municipal administration’s decision to raise the transport fees by 50 percent. The authorities scrapped the decision after scores of mostly young activists protested across Yerevan, urging commuters to defy the higher fares.
Some of those activists are now senior members of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party holding parliament seats or executive posts in government. One of them, parliament speaker Alen Simonian, accused the current campaigners of pushing a “demagogic agenda.”
“The price of public transport cannot be 100 drams for another 3,000 years,” Simonian told journalists.