Currently, Ukraine has a single railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia. There are railway lines to Lviv alone from eight directions, covering individual settlements (!) in 14 communities.
This means that the Lviv agglomeration and the oblast as a whole have a strong railway connection.
Ihor Mohyla, consultant of the Council of Europe Programme, told this to the Decentralisation.gov. ua. But despite these advantages, the expert notes that Ukrzaliznytsia mainly works on freight transport. And also for passenger traffic, i.e. long-distance. Because it is much more profitable than suburban transport. That’s why we have suburban transport with inconvenient intervals for residents of agglomerations.
Over time, suburban trains will become an alternative to suburban buses, as is the case in Europe today.
In particular, it is quite possible that Ukraine will have several railway operators, not just one, as it is now. According to Ihor Mohyla, there is already a new draft law on rail transport.
“The draft law contains rules on the admission of private operators to the infrastructure, provisions that allow the city to buy a certain flight from the operator and specify what time this train should run. When the city pays for it, it will be able to set conditions for the operator. In the meantime, Ukrzaliznytsia has no interest in running trains at popular times if it can run international, mainline or freight trains,” says the Council of Europe Programme consultant.
By the way, in Europe, which Ukraine is looking to, it didn’t start all at once either. Even now, in neighbouring Poland, it is not always possible to transfer people from their own cars to public transport, despite the government’s policy, which is doing a great job.
“For example, if there is a town like our Horodok 30 km from Krakow, people from the community come to the railway station there. There is a large free parking lot for train passengers. They change to a high-speed train and go to Krakow. It’s very attractive, people understand that a suburban train is convenient, inexpensive and there is no need to look for a parking space in Krakow. Having an extensive network of railways, we should do the same here,” says Mykola Shchur, Deputy Mayor of Horodok.
“Of course, this type of public transport requires large investments in infrastructure development and the purchase of rolling stock. It also requires legislative changes. But we need to think about and plan for all of this now – to prepare the appropriate legislative framework. So that after the Victory, we can start implementing our plans. Because the association is not only a platform for discussions, but also works to find investments,” says Roman Kizyma, executive director of the Lviv Agglomeration Association.
International donors also emphasise this.