{"id":106588,"date":"2011-06-17T12:11:29","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T07:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=106588"},"modified":"2011-06-17T12:12:50","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T07:12:50","slug":"dignified-transport-facebook-activist-says-minibuses-are-breaking-the-nations-backbone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/06\/17\/dignified-transport-facebook-activist-says-minibuses-are-breaking-the-nations-backbone.html","title":{"rendered":"Dignified Transport: Facebook Activist Says Minibuses are Breaking the &#8216;Nation&#8217;s BackBone&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Created a few days ago was a Facebook group called &#8220;Dignified transport,&#8221; which already has at least 500 members. Speaking to Epress.am, group administrator and Yerevan resident Arman Gharibyan described the group&#8217;s activities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We, those concerned with the state of [public] transportation [in Armenia], had thought about doing something long ago. It&#8217;s not possible to live in Armenia and not to be discontented with the transportation, except for the metro, which, regretfully, does not serve all communities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Minibuses [commonly referred to as marshrutkas] work very poorly; they don&#8217;t follow their obligations listed in the tenders; don&#8217;t approach stops at the correct frequency, but rather are intentionally late, so that they can fit as many people as possible in one vehicle and earn a lot of money,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gharibyan, this is an issue of national security (or rather, safety): the nation&#8217;s backbone is being broken in public transportation \u2014 both physically and psychologically.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every time I am forced to stand in public transport [crouched over, as one cannot stand straight up in the minibuses], I feel dishonored, offended. Perhaps we don&#8217;t realize it, but that&#8217;s a daily stress for all of us,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Gharibyan noted that the vast majority of the population make use of the minibuses, as a result of which people are either late getting to work or are forced to travel in an inhumane state.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The time has come to put an end to this situation that&#8217;s incompatible with human dignity. We are going to demand the state provide dignified transport to the public. This is that problem which cannot be refused; if it will be [refused], we won&#8217;t tolerate it, we will fight,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The group &#8220;Dignified transport&#8217; is not yet fully formed: the group&#8217;s activities will be confirmed at the meeting this Saturday, Gharibyan added.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Minibuses [commonly referred to as marshrutkas] work very poorly; they don&#8217;t follow their obligations listed in&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[28387,65942,17272,17271,16267,17267,10355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}