In Banja Luka’s „Gave Vučković “ street started the works on the construction of parking spaces for cars in the area between road, walking trail and cycling trail. The contractor removed the grass layer and trees, and in this way, yet another green space of the city which also protected the pedestrians and cyclists from the mindless drivers will be destroyed. According to the information, we have received from one of the workers who performed the work, it is planned to build in concrete planches instead.
On the Web site of the town administration city of Banja Luka, there is no information about this public procurement, and we are going to ask for it officially.
Tihomir Dakić, coordinator of Transportation downtown for the environment:
„Although the study of the development of the traffic infrastructure for the city of Banja Luka has not been made yet, the traffic suffers a major negative influence of excessive construction of residential and commercial buildings. In the past four years in terms of developing bicycle infrastructure, town authorities are fully forgotten the construction of a new bicycle trail, although they promised it already. The current situation is such that the pedestrians are struggling for their space with illegally parked cars on sidewalks. It is necessary to ensure the good conditions for pedestrians and cyclists as soon as possible because in this way the traffic congestion, pollution, and the inconveniences that existing automotive traffic causes would be significantly reduced“.
Except it significantly affects the safety of traffic and threatens the rights of pedestrians and cyclists, parking lot which construction has already begun, is not in accordance to the currently applicable Regulatory Plan Center-East. It has been predicted by this plan that this area should be an alley.
„This is another in the series of conscious omissions of the spatial planning department, which are not allowed to issue permits for the work, as well as the Department for inspection affairs, which had to react in a timely manner. Moreover, a noticeable trend is that a large number of restaurants is getting consent from the city officials for usage of the public surfaces which are mentioned to be used by the pedestrians and cyclists. We hope that the new mayor will be more sympathetic to the needs of citizens, and a vision for a planned development of the city that can respond to the challenges that bring the development of the city into the 21st century, “ added the coordinator of the Nas prostor initiative (Our space), Jelena Brkić.
The destruction of these green areas and trees is a consequence of the bad spatial planning because the original documentation neglected the needs for parking spaces for nearby residential and commercial buildings.