There are not many people travelling by intercity buses and passenger trains. But those who do are faced with a sad reality – transport links are steadily declining. The process has been sustained since the dawn of democracy, given a strong impetus by the caucasian pandemic. Living standards, sustainable development, ecology, normal life without public transport?
It’s like a double vicious circle: passengers are declining for demographic reasons, transport companies are asking for more and more subsidies – municipalities are not paying them because… passengers are declining – declining, however, and because the shrinking of buses is forcing them to look for other options.
An elderly woman lives in a town. Needs to go non-doctor in regional center. She catches the bus in the morning, gets checked out, then…
hangs 6 hours on benches in the big city.
She has no choice because the bus back is not until the evening. You can see this scene every day in the Varna municipality of Byala, or Vetrino for example. There are no trains either. And if the woman is from a village – she cannot go to the doctor at all. She relies on private transport in both directions.
Sad and nasty, this whole process is characterized by something else. It does not concern real life, but journalism, science – the process is almost impossible to measure, to capture in percentages and numbers. There are no sources by which to judge. And it’s like collecting water in a strainer. For example, there are regional transport schemes. They are created over a dozen or more years, they describe routes and routes. But they themselves change in the meantime,
a lot of what is written down is not implemented.
Separately, weekday and weekend services are different, and they also change – not only in time, but also in routes. And also according to the summer and winter season. How can you determine, for example, by how much the service in the municipality of Valchi dol has shrunk in 10 years, after a route from Varna through 10 settlements has been liquidated, but it was run only on Saturdays and Sundays, and a new one was opened for five settlements, but daily? Simply, to be able to reliably track the number of bus runs by destination, you have to be on the spot – on one day, from one stop, one bus leaves, then it’s that one, they go somewhere, at the end they are left…; from each stop like that – an impossible task.
The fact that the European Social Fund’s definition of transport poverty has not been adopted in this country contributes to the problem of immeasurability. It looks at various criteria, including limited access to a transport service to ensure that citizens enjoy basic socio-economic services and activities. It can at least identify places and measures for impact.
All these clarifications are important, because with this article we are trying to point out in which municipalities of Varna region the bus routes have been the most frequent over the years. Similar data have not been published, we have tried to cover the process. We were not able to do so accurately for the reasons listed above. But still as a trend some facts are visible. Our base year was 2017, when the transport scheme of Varna region was last voted. And we took the information for the present from the truest possible reality – the currently functioning timetables. Here’s the bottom line:
Relatively good bus service in the municipalities of Aksakovo, Devnya and Beloslav
compared to the district centre Varna, of course, but the connections with the interior of the district are poor. The connections between the villages themselves are also bad, but they have always been so. In these three municipalities, too, there are shortened courses, but in reality the working people can easily travel to Varna. With Aksakovo the connection is practically urban via line 409, in Beloslav and Devnya – almost urban. Interestingly, the three municipalities are on the territory of the old agglomeration Varna – Devnya, which since the time of socialism the state wanted to develop. Although much smaller compared to then, today there are also factories in Devnya. In Aksakovo there are warehouses and service activities. Beloslav is in the middle of the road to Devnya. All this explains the flow and the service.
For Vetrino, Byala, Avren and Dalgopol the trips are twice a day. Valchi dol – 3, Suvorovo – 5. But Vetrino and Suvorovo have 2 on the weekend, and
Valchi dol – without any.
Actually Byala in theory has good transport connectivity because the Varna – Burgas shuttle runs through it. But they do not reach the centre of the settlement, they stop miles away from it – the example with the grandmother from the beginning of the article is quite accurate.
There are 9 routes to Provadia, 6 to Dolni Chiflik. Accordingly – 3 and 2 on Saturday and Sunday. However, as many as 10 routes to and around Dolni Chiflik municipality have been dropped since 2017. At Provadia – 3, which are connections to Dalgopol.
Here is more of the 7 years of closed service:
8 lines for the municipality of Valchi dol. 6 – for Dalgopol. 8 including settlements by groups from Dolni Chiflik, Devnya, Avren, Valchi Dol, Suvorovo. There are more truncated in Aksakovo, but, we noted above, that compared to others the municipality has good connectivity.
In conclusion, it can be said that
Dolni Chiflik, Valchi Dol and Dalgopol are the municipalities with the most reduced bus service
from 2017 until today. This does not mean that access to them is the worst, because, as it became clear, there are municipalities with fewer runs than them. It’s just that these three used to have people, factories, and today they don’t. The process is murderous.
In conclusion: walk or drive! And any mantras about modern intercity bus transport forget it!
Are trains an alternative?
The answer is yes and no. In Byala, Vetrino and Aksakovo there is no rail transport. It runs on the periphery of Avren, with Sindel being an important junction, and trains rarely stop in the village of Trastikovo. Almost formal is the station Nova Shipka in Dolni Chiflik, as there is no other station in the municipality. All trains to and from Varna pass through Beloslav and Devnya. However, people, mainly in Beloslav, are periodically dissatisfied with adjustments to the timetable, whereby a train convenient for returning to or going to work in Varna stops at the station. In Provadia the trains are convenient, relatively – in Dalgopol. The connection to Suvorovo and Valchi dol is good, due to the Varna – Dobrich line.
But all this situation is combined with two very important features. Firstly, due to its nature, in principle the railway transport cannot cover many settlements. It is the buses that should make up for the shortcomings. Secondly, railway stations are built in such a way that they are often located at a great distance from the respective settlement. The station in the village of Yunak, Avren municipality, for example, is more than 2 km from the houses. If you are a grandmother, how will you walk the distance?
In the years after 1989, there is also a completely liquidated railway connection in the Varna region: Yunak – Stara Oryahovo. It was connected to the resort of Shkorpilovtsi by buses – tourists travelling there did not have to go through Varna. Today there is not only no train and bus, but also no tracks.
More data
85% of the travel volume in the country is carried out by private transport. But 17.5% of households cannot afford to buy and maintain a private car.
Individual expenditure on transport services in Bulgaria accounts for 4.3% of the household budget, while the European average is 2.2%. It takes 1.267 million working Bulgarians between 30 and 60 minutes to get to work every day. The most problematic are those living in rural areas, as well as long-distance commuters in big cities. Women are more vulnerable because most cars and driving licences are held by men.
The data are by Daniel Popov from the environmental association “For the Earth” and NGO representative in the monitoring committee of OP “Transport”. They were presented at the civic forum “Democracy Conference 2024” in Varna, and the topic was also discussed on the website ecovarna.info.
Photos Ilian Iliev
