Bucharest was built for one million but now has four million people, mayor says

Four million people currently live in Romania’s capital Bucharest, mayor Gabriela Firea said in an interview with DC News on Thursday. She used this number to explain why Bucharest’s traffic problem is so difficult to solve, given that the city was built for a population of one million.

“Traffic is our biggest problem. A city built for one million people. We are over four million according to all studies,” Firea said.

When confronted by the reporter about Bucharest’s official population in public statistics, Firea explained that the official figures are outdated.

“I am very sure, there is statistical data. At the latest census, there were two and a half million, but this was ten and a half years ago. I am talking about the reality, what we have in Bucharest when we add all the employees in multinationals who come from the rest of the country and haven’t yet changed their official residence, all the students, all the tourists and the other citizens who live in Bucharest without legal forms, without a Bucharest identity card,” Firea told DC News.

“In a city built for only one million people, to have now 4 million people, and there are families that have 2, 3 cars, it’s not impossible, but difficult to solve (the traffic problem – e.n.) over night,” she added.

Gabriela Firea is often criticized that she hasn’t managed to solve the traffic problem in Bucharest, in the three years since she was elected mayor, although this was one of the main promises she made to get elected. “Yes, I wanted it and I still want it, but let’s also see how it can be done,” she said in the DC News interview.

The Bucharest mayor believes the results would have been “spectacular, revolutionary” if the municipality had been granted property over the Bucharest ring road and the subway company Metrorex.

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