{"id":107606,"date":"2011-06-21T13:59:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=107606"},"modified":"2011-06-21T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:59:00","slug":"yerevan-metro-fare-doubles-starting-july-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/06\/21\/yerevan-metro-fare-doubles-starting-july-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Yerevan Metro Fare Doubles Starting July 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starting from Jul. 1, one-way fares for the Yerevan metro will increase to 100 drams (about $0.28 USD) instead of the current 50 drams (about $0.14 USD), said Yerevan mayor Karen Karapetyan, speaking to journalists in the Armenian capital today. Note, 100 drams is the cost of public transportation buses, trolley buses and minibuses (marshrutkas).<\/p>\n

This way, Karapetyan said, city hall intends to foster the development and use the maximum potential of Yerevan’s subway system.<\/p>\n

According to the mayor, 20 million passengers annually make use of Yerevan’s metro, which comprises 5\u20136% of public transport passengers in the capital. Armenia’s state budget subsidized the metro to the tune of 1 billion 845 million drams annually.<\/p>\n

Recall, in February of this year, deputy finance minister Vardan Aramyan, during the question and answer period in parliament, had said that subways are considered around the world to operate at a loss but a necessary means of transport from a social perspective, which is why 65% is funded from the state budget, while only 35% of revenues come from fares.<\/p>\n

Aramyan had said that in the future, due to the fare increase, the metro will be self-financed.<\/p>\n

Earlier, a Facebook group had been created<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, with the then-450 members protesting the looming fare hike.<\/p>\n

One user, Artur Baghdasaryan, wrote, \u201cA little while later, they\u2019ll tear apart the metro and sell the railway tracks. I won\u2019t be surprised at all if that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Facebook user wrote, \u201cAll that\u2019s left is to make the city transport [fares] 200 drams, to be done with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are complete IDIOTS\u2026 let them increase the prices of everything; with which part are they thinking? Let us live in peace\u2026 What will be the end of this? \u2026 I can\u2019t find the words, I don\u2019t know\u2026 Rather, I do find [the words], but I can\u2019t freely express myself, because I would write the worst words\u2026 do you understand?\u201d wrote another user by the name of Arturo Sayan.<\/p>\n

Facebook user Haykanush Arshakyan proposed a way to protest the city\u2019s decision: don\u2019t take the metro for one week:<\/p>\n

\u201cCome, let\u2019s protest by not taking the metro for a week, let\u2019s see what will happen. Perhaps through this way they\u2019ll realize that the fare increase is uncalled-for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting from Jul. 1, one-way fares for the Yerevan metro will increase to 100 drams (about $0.28 USD) instead of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[65942,28584,13935,17267,27483,25309],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107606"}],"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=107606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}