Over one million Bucharest inhabitants had to find an alternative way to travel yesterday following the strike of bus, trolley bus and tramcar drivers, who demand salaries of at least 3,000 RON per month.
The so-called “spontaneous strike” of the 4,500 bus, trolley bus and tramcar drivers cancelled Bucharest’s 2.7 million daily trips.
For Bucharest, which is a “metropolis on wheels”, a strike of public transportation workers is a genuine disaster. Yesterday it disturbed the daily route of over one million travellers (a standard trip home-work-back home was considered), more than double as many as would be affected by a similar action from “rival” underground transportation operator Metrorex, which carries 479,000 travellers daily, according to company data for 2009.
Heavily subsidised by the City Hall (unlike Metrorex, subsidised by the state via the Ministry of Transportation), Bucharest’s ground transportation has become a burden to Bucharest’s budget.
Out of the revenues expected by the City Hall for 2010, around 950 million euros, half the sum will go to subsidies for RATB (Bucharest Transportation Public Corporation) and RADET (Heating Public Corporation).

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