New election coalition would lose Tallinn boroughs, build metro

A new election coalition called Tallinn 2037 would set out to decrease the number of public servants by a quarter, replace the city’s boroughs with service centers, introduce a sea bus service, and build a metro by 2037.
The 21-strong initiative group of the election coalition is at present made up of people aged 20-40, Jevgeni Krištafovitš, member of the initiative group, told BNS on Friday.
Krištafovitš said that there was an equal number of Russian-speaking and Estonian-speaking members in the group. “This is a list of young people, with virtually none of the members having been involved in politics before. We have not involved public figures yet, but have included young entrepreneurs, teachers and specialists,” he explained.
“We have agreed that the election coalition will present a ‘zipper’ list, in which Estonia and Russian candidates are ordered alternately,” Krištafovitš said. “The aim is to bring more young people as well as Russian-speaking people into politics. At present we have very active Russian members of the Kaitseliit volunteer corps in our initiative group, with whom one could definitely go to battle. They are serious guys whose idea of the future of Tallinn is very good.”
The group has divided the election coalition’s program priorities into three main goals: A green Tallinn, a red-tape-free Tallinn, and a Tallinn that supports flexible education and innovation.
“The green program involves the launch of a sea bus on the Kakumäe-Kopli-City Center-Pirita route, free bicycle rent in the city, doubling the total length of bike and pedestrian paths, renovating all children’s playgrounds, and building a high-speed tram and semi-underground metro with an underground section below the city center by 2037,” Krištafovitš said.
Building a metro in a city with such a small population as that of Tallinn may seem a utopian idea, but there was no other solution to address the exponential growth of the speed of public transport as well as clearing the city center of cars, Krištafovitš said.
The approximate cost of the underground and tram would be €1.5 billion, and its launch could be co-financed by the European Union by 2037, Krištafovitš added.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS