The first session of the Krakow City Council after the summer break will take place this week. There are many indications that councilors will not yet deal with the issue of increasing the price of tickets for public transport. Officials want to give themselves and the councilors more time to talk about the final shape of the increases, before the latter deal with the project. This one has still not appeared among the draft resolutions awaiting adoption.
Officials plan to increase the public transport ticket prices
I was telling you already that the officials were getting ready to increase the prices of tickets for public transport. In July, it was officially known what changes were planned by officials. As they explained, the increases are necessary, because the Coronavirus pandemic had a negative impact on the city’s transport budget and if we want to maintain the pre-pandemic network and frequency of connections in the autumn, the increases are necessary.
It seemed that the councilors would deal with the raises at the first session after the holidays, which is on the last Wednesday of August (Yup! Tomorrow!). But they won’t! “In order for the print to go to the session, the president must submit it at least one week before the session, i.e. by 17th August. It has not happened so far and I doubt it will change” – Dominik Jaśkowiec, chairman of the City Council tells us. The draft resolution is still not in the Public Information Bulletin.
Confirmation from The Mayor
His words are confirmed by a spokeswoman for Jacek Majchrowski. “The ticket resolution will not be available until one of the September sessions. We want to propose a project that has a chance to be adopted and will be a compromise” – says Monika Chylaszek. The officials will, therefore, work with the councilors on the project for some time to come.
What are the current propositions?
- a one-way ticket for 6 PLN (now 4.6),
- a 10-minute ticket for 3 PLN (now a 20-minute ticket for 3.6)
- a 90-mint ticket for 8 PLN (now 6).
The entire ticket tariff is to be changed. There will be no more monthly tickets for one or two lines. The current monthly ticket for all lines on the Krakow Card, instead of 69, is to cost 96 PLN (zone I) and 110 PLN (zone I and II).
New transport tickets may appear
A novelty will be the possibility to buy a 6-month ticket for all lines for the Krakow Card (i.e. for people paying taxes in Krakow) for 480 or 550 PLN (zones I and II).
Zone III is also to be a novelty – these are the farthest areas outside the city, where public transport from Krakow now commutes. However, we still do not know the border of the third zone. A monthly ticket for zone I, without Krakow Card, is to cost 128 PLN for the zone I, 96 PLN for zone II, and 69 PLN for zone III. In turn, a ticket without Krakow Card for zones I and II will cost 146 PLN(the same for zones II and III), and 166 PLN for all zones.
In addition, the tariff will include a monthly social ticket for 30, 50, and 70 PLN (zone I, I and II, zone I, II, and III) and an activation ticket for the unemployed for 50 and 100 PLN (zone I, I and II).
Coronavirus affecting public transport/price of tickets
According to officials, the increases are necessary due to the coronavirus epidemic, which plowed through the city’s transport systems. How much Krakow’s public transport has suffered can be seen from the April data on the inflow of ticket sales – only 4.12 million PLN, compared to 23.76 million PLN in April 2019. It was a little better in May – 8.89 million PLN. But that was over 16 million PLN less than in May a year ago. In June, the proceeds amounted to 13.2 million PLN. A year ago, it was 22.7 million PLN.
During the epidemic, the daily revenues from ticket sales decreased from approx. 1.5-2.5 million PLN to several dozen thousand zlotys or a maximum of 200-400 thousand PLN.
“We estimate that by the end of the year, the revenues from tickets will be at the level we forecast, i.e. in autumn they will reach 70%. what before the pandemic, we will lose PLN 100 to 140 million by the end of the year” – Łukasz Franek, director of the Public Transport Board told Gazeta Krakowska some time ago.
Already in this year’s city budget for public transport, a deficit of PLN 300 million was planned. If the above assumptions are met, at the end of the year the budget gap in public transport will start to reach half a billion zlotys.
Original article (in Polish language) from Gazeta Krakowska can be found here.
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The Twisted Red LadyBug bringing you Krakow News
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