“The people of Ljubljana say that all politicians steal, but Mayor Janković also does something. After four terms, we see what he can do and what he cannot. There were a lot of cosmetics, too many businesses for friends, but too little ambition to deal with the city’s essential problems. There is a feeling that the city is being taken care of in the same way as taking care of the equipment of pharmacies with pharmacists,” argued Zbor za republiko (Assembly for the Republic) that it is time to change the mayoral team in Ljubljana and make it a modern Central European capital.
A lot was done in Ljubljana during the sixteen years of Zoran Janković’s mayorship. The old city centre is more beautiful, Ljubljana has a new football stadium, a sports hall and several other sports facilities, the art gallery Cukrarna has been renovated, many bicycle paths have been drawn, the Fabiani Bridge and several smaller bridges over the Ljubljanica River have been built. City services – from garbage collection to pharmacy supply – are working.
“And yet, during the four mandates of the same mayoral team, the city has not fully resolved any of the city’s major and important problems. There was a lot of attention to detail, there were also some larger projects, but none of them were finally settled,” believes Zbor za republiko, adding that even after twelve years, the Stožice complex is a shame for the city with its unfinished commercial work. According to them, he is also directly responsible for the deterioration of the Plečnik Stadium, which has not had a proper function since then.
Ljubljana is suffocated by traffic, the height of skyscrapers is exaggerated
Zbor za republiko pointed out that there has been no significant improvement in traffic regulation during the four mandates. The Styrian arterial road is unfinished and ends at a roundabout in the suburbs. The second city ring, on which a large investment was made in the otherwise too narrow Fabiani bridge, has no connection with Drenikova Street, but on the other side it ends in the too narrow Roška Street. Traffic from the city is pushed onto the ring road, which remained two-lane as it was built. The opportunity to solve the parking problem in the centre with a larger parking garage in the Congress Square was missed. “Public transport is roughly the same, and with such lines as in the 1970s, only travel times are longer due to new obstacles and detours,” they were critical, at the same time there are also water catchments and sewage from those times.
The mayor’s office systematically allowed exaggeration in the densification of the city. New blocks of flats are growing on the green areas of residential areas, villa-blocks are being built one floor too high on plots for individual houses, Šumi is being demolished in the city centre and a concrete colossus is being built three stories higher, on plots for smaller blocks the height of skyscrapers is being exaggerated.
The city does not have a city hospital, the nursing homes are overcrowded, and the city has a monopoly medicine seller that makes the townspeople overpay for them.
Lots of cosmetics and too many businesses for friends
The people of Ljubljana say that all politicians steal, but Mayor Zoran Janković also does something. Zbor za republiko estimated that after four terms we can see what he can do and what he cannot. “There was a lot of cosmetics, too many businesses for friends, but too little ambition to deal with the essential problems of the city. There is a feeling that the city is being taken care of in the same way as taking care of the equipment of pharmacies with pharmacists.”
Zbor za republiko therefore believes that it is time for the mayor’s team to be replaced. To increase the ambition to make Ljubljana a modern Central European capital, whose first concern is that it is possible to work successfully and live healthily in the city.
Sara Kovač
