“Country to Live”: Banning regional transport from entering Yerevan will not solve the capital’s traffic congestion problem

ArmInfo. Restricting regional transport from entering Yerevan will not only fail to resolve the problem of traffic jams in the capital, but will also create new problems for Armenian citizens. Co-founder of the “Country to Live” party Mesrop Arakelyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

In particular, according to him, this will lead to additional overcrowding of public transport and the need to spend more time on the road. “By restricting regional transport from entering Yerevan, the problem of traffic jams in the capital will not only remain unresolved, but new problems will also be created for citizens: overcrowded public transport, the need to spend more time on the road, and increased transportation costs. Moreover, it should be taken into account that students, workers, and citizens with relatively low incomes mainly use transport arriving in Yerevan from the regions. If regional transport is unable to enter Yerevan, they will have to travel part of the way by one means of transport and then use another means of transport in Yerevan. In other words, this will create not only an additional time burden for them, but also a financial one,” Arakelyan explained.

The politician believes that, with more than half a million cars in the country, restricting the entry of several hundred vehicles from the regions in the belief that this could solve the problem of traffic jams in Yerevan is, at the very least, a short-sighted approach. “And the problem of traffic jams has sound solutions. But it is not being solved once and for all for one reason: because of the authorities, which have failed in urban management,” Arakelyan concluded.

It should be recalled that earlier, addressing traffic jams in the capital, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan stated that regional transport should not be allowed to provide services within Yerevan.  He believes that public transport from the regions should travel as far as the boundary of Yerevan, and from there citizens should continue their journey by the capital’s public transport.

It should be noted that back on November 27, 2025, at a government meeting, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that two working groups would be established in Armenia to address the problems of air pollution and traffic jams in Yerevan. On December 10, 2025, the Interagency Commission for the Regulation of Road Traffic and Overcoming Traffic Jams was established. This was despite the fact that a structure that was supposed to address this issue was already operating within the capital’s municipality. At the time, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan also stated that the problem of traffic jams in the capital would be resolved by improving the quality of public transport. In particular, this would be achieved through the implementation of a Yerevan Metro modernization program, under which a new “Ajapnyak” station was to be built. However, to date, neither has the new metro station been built, nor has the previously seriously disrupted former metro schedule—when it operated like clockwork under the previous authorities—been restored. Moreover, the situation with other public transport has not improved either, while new traffic regulations developed by the capital’s officials are driving the city into even greater traffic jams.  The situation is further aggravated by the fact that half of the capital’s roads have been dug up amid the construction of high-rise buildings here and there, for which infrastructure must be provided.  As a result, the city has found itself in a transport collapse. Now traffic jams are observed in Yerevan not only during rush hour.