The National Liberal Party (PNL, co-ruling) candidate for mayor of Bucharest presented, on Monday evening, the Plan for Bucharest, which provides, among other things, proposals related to the fight against drugs, moving transport underground, heating, digitization and a green Bucharest.
The liberal candidate said that in recent years Bucharest lacked a vision and that he had been translating his ideas for Bucharest for a long time in a book, called The Plan for Bucharest, to give a perspective, the book being published ahead of being announced the PNL candidate.
„Because I did not enter this fight, together with you, for a job. I entered for the ideas that deserve to be put into practice,” Burduja said.
He mentioned that he has diplomas that will help him in carrying out a modern administration.
„I trained in urban development, that’s what I did at the World Bank, that’s what I studied at Stanford, at Harvard,” Sebastian Burduja detailed.
The PNL candidate began the presentation of his plan for the Capital City with a current topic – the fight against drug use. He emphasized that a mayor can do this in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior and through the presence of local police in the vicinity of schools.
Another chapter presented by the candidate is „Connected Bucharest” and aimed at streamlining traffic.
„Let’s take the traffic underground and leave the city for the people,” Burduja pointed out, giving as an example the effect of the „The Big Dig” project in the American city of Boston.
The liberal said that he wants Bucharest to become a port on the Danube.
„It’s a project that I care a lot about and it’s called ‘Bucharest port to the Danube’. We have a Danube-Bucharest Canal, which is about 70% finished. No one has been able to do this in 34 years. The idea is not from the communists, it’s from Alexandru Ioan Cuza (the ruler who has united the two Romanian principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, in 1859, ed. n.). Think of Bucharest as a port on the Danube. We belong to this club, by the way, it’s the cheapest form of transport. Danube-Vienna cruise? Why not? We don’t have to propose small things and small towns, big stakes make big people and big cities,” Burduja underlined.
He also spoke about ‘civilized Bucharest’, with hot water and heat. In 2024, added Burduja, there is still talk in the Capital City of many blocks of flats without hot water and heat. Among the solutions presented was the fact that there is geothermal water in the north of Bucharest, which must be used as green energy, renewable energy, for heating.
Burduja also referred to the creation of a new public park, which would connect Izvor Park with the park around the Parliament Palace and the park in front of the Romanian Academy.
The liberal also talked about the need to build some underground parking lots, but also about the transformation of the Baneasa Forest into an urban park.
Digital Bucharest and the creation of a ‘unicorn factory’ was the last point presented by the candidate in his plan on Monday.
„At Digital Bucharest I want to talk to you about a soul project called the ‘unicorn factory’. The ‘unicorn factory’ happened in Lisbon. The city hall there took an old industrial area, a former factory, and turned it into a hub for start-ups. It looks sensational! We have a lot of spaces in Bucharest that match this,” said Burduja.
The minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja, submitted his candidacy for the seat of general mayor on Saturday, at the Municipal Electoral Office, in the presence of the PNL leader, Nicolae Ciuca.
AGERPRES
