Mustafa Bozbey announces how many days of drinking water Bursa has left

Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Mustafa Bozbey announced that if there is no rainfall, there is enough drinking water in the dams to last the city for 48 days.

Bozbey, at a press conference held at the Merinos Atatürk Congress and Culture Center to evaluate the approximately 9-month period since he took office, drew attention to the fact that water resources are decreasing due to the impact of global warming and climate change.

Explaining that calls for water conservation have been met with a response from city residents, Bozbey said, "Previously, when our water was running low and we had about 42 days of water left, I invited the people of Bursa to save water. I was truly proud of the people of Bursa. I saw incredible savings, and I thank them for that. When there is trust, the people of Bursa support it; I am someone who has witnessed this. As of now, we have 48 days of water."

Bozbey stated that they have received a promise from the contractor firm that the ongoing work for additional water supply from the Çınarcık Dam will be completed in the final months of 2025.

Stating that they provide 350 million lira in support payments every month to Bursa Transportation and Public Transit Management Inc. (BURULAŞ), one of the municipality's subsidiaries, for transportation, Bozbey reported that efforts are continuing to increase the use of public transportation and reduce traffic through implemented projects.

Emphasizing that they have made the system more attractive with a method where those who use public transportation for short periods pay less, Bozbey noted the following:

"We have enabled women to get off wherever they want during night hours; this is an important thing. We are working intensively on alternative routes. We are about to complete expropriations that were left unfinished in some locations. With these expropriations, we will continue to open roads both on the south side and in the north. The east-west axis settlement in Bursa causes traffic problems. It must be known that from now on, when requests for private schools come in, we will absolutely never grant permission for private schools on the west side. The existing ones are sufficient; in fact, if possible, we need to find ways to distribute them to the east side, to Osmangazi, to Yıldırım. Again, we are experiencing and seeing what the traffic has become due to the industrial zones that are constantly being built in the west. We are witnessing that traffic is heavily congested in the morning and evening hours due to shuttle vehicles and families taking and picking up their children from schools themselves."

Sharing information that work on urban transformation is continuing in areas with soil liquefaction, Bozbey said, "Our colleagues are going to Japan, our stakeholders there are coming here, and they are sharing reports with us. Especially in the plain region, there are areas with high liquefaction potential. We are talking about an alluvium layer of 155-160 meters. Therefore, every transformation to be made here will make our citizens safe."

Bozbey added that the visit of Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of Catholics and Head of State of the Vatican, to the İznik district in 2025 as part of the 1700th-anniversary events of the First Council of Nicaea, which has an important place in the history of Christianity, will make great contributions to the promotion of Bursa.

News Source: AA