Kim Dong-yeon: "Will Implement Immediate Transportation Measures to Keep Citizens Moving"

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Kim Gap-dong] Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Dong-yeon announced regarding the Seoul city bus strike, "Gyeonggi Province will implement immediate transportation measures to ensure citizens' mobility is not halted."

Governor Kim made these remarks on January 14th during a "briefing on Gyeonggi Province's emergency transport measures in response to the Seoul city bus strike," stating, "Transportation is a cornerstone of people's livelihoods and a fundamental right that sustains our residents' lives. Regardless of the cause of the strike, we can never tolerate the damages being transferred to our Gyeonggi Province citizens."

Governor Kim said, "My heart is heavy with the great inconvenience and worry our residents commuting to Seoul must be experiencing due to the Seoul city bus strike that began yesterday (January 13th)," and added, "I deeply sympathize with the hardships our residents faced, particularly as the weather has become colder and road icing is a concern, causing significant disruption to public transportation use."

Governor Kim stated, "Gyeonggi Province already deployed 1,788 buses across 128 alternative routes on January 13th to resolve transportation inconvenience caused by the Seoul strike," and announced, "Starting with the first bus tomorrow (January 15th) morning, 41 bus routes and approximately 474 buses (26.5%) among Gyeonggi Province buses entering Seoul that are subject to the public management system will be operated completely free of charge."

He emphasized, "To reduce citizen confusion, publicly-managed buses will have identification marks attached to the front windshield to indicate they are free buses, allowing any resident to easily recognize them and board without card tapping."

Governor Kim Dong-yeon said, "This free operation measure is made possible thanks to the Gyeonggi Province City Bus Public Management System that our province proactively introduced and is operating," and stressed, "Currently, our province has secured approximately 350 billion won in city bus public management budget, ensuring that residents' fundamental right to transportation will never be compromised due to budget issues."

Governor Kim stated, "In preparation for the possibility of a prolonged strike, if this strike continues into next week, we will deploy additional charter buses to major transit hubs starting Monday (January 19th)."

Along with this, he said, "Since transportation demand is currently heavily concentrated at subway stations, we will prevent potential safety accidents and further strengthen transportation capacity to assist residents' mobility," and emphasized, "Gyeonggi Province will manage the situation thoroughly until the strike ends and take full responsibility for protecting our residents' commute to and from work until the very end."