The Sofia Municipality will initiate meetings with various state institutions regarding the cleaning of the road infrastructure to the "Vitosha" Nature Park. This was reported on his personal Facebook profile by the Mayor of the Sofia Municipality, Vasil Terziev, quoted by BTA.
He points out that two days ago changes were made to the method of cleaning the roads to Vitosha and the result is already available. "We had to do part of the state's work because we did not see any commitment from it", said Terziev and specified that the nature park and the forest fund are state-owned, and the municipal forest fund on the territory of the "Vitosha" park is only within the scope of the villages of Zheleznitsa and Bistritsa. According to Terziev, the Municipality has the right and commitment to clean the roads used by public transport and part of the access to some chalets.
"Maintaining and removing dangerous trees is a commitment primarily of the State Forestry - Sofia, in coordination with several other state structures. In the past few days, teams from the Sofia Municipality have had to remove dangerously overhanging trees in order to prevent another risk to people's safety," said Mayor Terziev and announced that on this occasion they will initiate meetings with the various state institutions so that everyone can take on their own commitment.
Vasil Terziev recalls that at the opening of the ski season on Vitosha, the road was blocked for several hours, both due to snowfall and insufficient equipment on the part of the cleaning company. Terziev explained that he had requested that a new way of working and interaction between everyone be developed in order to prevent similar situations from occurring and added that in this regard, the requirements for the company with which the Sofia Municipality has a contract for winter cleaning, provision of adequate equipment for mountain winter conditions and more frequent sand treatments have been increased.
The two roads to Vitosha will be closed to cars at night so that the contractor company can clean thoroughly, Terziev also wrote and pointed out that a process of closer coordination has been created between the teams of the Municipal Police, Emergency Assistance and Prevention (APP) at the Sofia Municipality, Center for Urban Mobility (CGM), ski schools, and chalets.
"In order for Vitosha to be accessible in conditions of missing lifts, everyone needs to be conscientious. That is why I am also addressing visitors to the mountain: always have cars suitable for winter conditions with winter tires and chains, comply with the guidelines of the Municipal Police teams and park conscientiously, use public transport instead of personal cars to avoid long queues, which, in addition to other visitors, create difficulties for the cleaning equipment, and often for public transport as well", appeals the mayor of Sofia Municipality.
"We continue to work to improve current access, but for months we have also been actively developing an overall vision for access to Vitosha. We will share it at the beginning of next year. Full access to Vitosha can only be decided with the participation of all institutions. Let's hope that this finally happens in 2025", Terziev also wrote.
On December 27, the Municipality announced that the roads to the “Vitosha“ Nature Park - district “Dragalevtsi” - chalet “Aleko” and “Boyana” - locality Zlatnite mostove”, will be closed to cars from 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. for major cleaning. The institution called on the owners of cars parked next to and on the roadway to move them so as not to interfere with the cleaning. The roads were opened the next day (December 28). Due to the poor quality of the snow removal on December 26 in the nature park, the activity will not be paid to the contractor, the Sofia Municipality also indicated.