How Kyivavtodor Obstructs Bike Lane Development in the Capital

Kyiv is on the 13th place in the traffic congestion ranking. This problem can be partially tackled by developing a comfortable cycling infrastructure. According to the “Concept for development of Kyiv bicycle infrastructure” 240 km of cycle routes are to be laid by 2025. But the people from «Kyivavtodor» are delaying the start of construction of bike lanes for a year already. They do so by unjustifiable cancellation of the bidding for the development of project cost sheets.

It would seem that the personal support of the city mayor, who not only has 9 bikes, but also occasionally uses them to get to work would provide a personal control of the issue and the rapid implementation of this infrastructure project. Yet, even today Vitalii Volodymyrovych has to break the Traffic rules and ride through the sidewalks, due to the fact that the number of bike lanes hasn’t changed since the approval of the Concept.

What does the current state of affairs show? In 2018 Communal corporation «Kyivavtodor» became the procuring entity for the reconstruction and construction of the road network in the sphere of creation of bicycle infrastructure. As far back as 2018 CC «Kyivavtodor» opened two tenders for the development of project cost sheets for the cycle route along the Naberezhne chausse from Poshtova Square to Paton Bridge, but both purchases were canceled.

Kyiv budget in 2019 has dedicated funds for designing 7 cycle routes:

• Vynohradar — Centre
• Obolon — Centre
• Solomianka — Centre
• Lisovyi masyv — Centre
• Kurenivka — Centre
• Voskresenka — The Pivnichnyi (“Northern”) Bridge-Centre
• Naberezhne highway from Poshtova Square to Paton Bridge.

In 7 months of 2019 CC «Kyivavtodor» announced 6 tenders for development of project cost sheets for three cycle routes, but 4 out of them were either canceled or declared void. 24.2019 in tender for project cost sheets for cycle route «Solomianka-Centre» Lviv municipal enterprise Institute for spatial development was declared the winner. Three days later, 27.07.2019, the Design institute of transport infrastructure LLC won the tender for designing the Naberezhne chaussee cycle route.

What is the reason for such a low success rate of the tenders?

• Do the participants prepare low-quality tender proposals?
• Does the tender documentation contain discriminatory requirements?
• Are the tenders won by unwanted bidders?

Of course, these questions should be answered by the procuring entity. But as it does not give any comments on the matter, we have no other option but to compare the facts and come to our own conclusions.

Sometimes even the presence of discriminatory requirements in tender documentation (further – TD) does not allow the «desired» participant to win. In those cases, CC «Kyivavtodor» is forced to not only disqualify the «unwanted» participants without any sound reason, but also to cancel the procurements, or declare them void.

Lifehack №1. Cancel the procurement due to the inability to eliminate the detected violations of the law. This is the official reasoning that has to be indicated in the fault protocol so that everything will be “by the books”. But in reality this wording can fit almost anything:

• you can exceed the time limit for consideration of the tender proposal (further – TP) of an unwanted participant, as it was done in this procurement and pretend that you forgot about the existence of the norm p. 4 art. 28, according to which the procuring entity can prolong the consideration for 20 work days.
• you can also refer to the request from the participant, which was not met by the procuring entity. Example here (unjustified disqualification of SPE Eltrans and Kiev National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, groundless victory of the Design institute of transport infrastructure LLC).

Life hack №2. Cancel the procurement due to the lack of further need in the purchase of goods, works or services.

If the wanted participant can’t prepare and submit the TP, don’t hesitate — just cancel the procurement. The argumentation can be simple and banal.  Here is an example of the case (the procuring entity justifies the need to cancel the procurement due to the absence of the «Construction of a bicycle lane along the Naberezhe chausse from Poshtova Square to Paton bridge» object in the address list «Kyiv Economic and Social Development Program for 2018-2020»). Don’t be bothered by the fact that a simple Google search can help you to establish the presence of the object: «Construction of a bicycle lane along the Naberezhne chausse from Poshtova Square to Paton bridge» in this list (Facility No. 42 Object Code 203476).

Combo-life hack №3. Declining all the TD’s and declaring the procurement to be void.

By using this life hack, you get the double result. First, you decline all the unwanted participants. Second, you can re-open the procurement. In these cases, the disqualification of the participants can be either fully lawful, or be in a grey area. You can find an example here (groundless disqualification of Expert Plus Project LLC and Architectural Restoration Enterprise Sofia LLC).

We hope that Kyivavtodor will hold the next tenders properly and won’t leave all the citizens, city visitors and even mayor without a possibility to navigate the city on special bike lanes.

For reference

Transparency International Ukraine has established the monitoring portal DOZORRO on the 1st of November 2016. The aim is to connect the civil society and ensure a level of playfield for all stakeholders in the procurement system.

Dozorro is an online platform where anybody can give feedback to government procuring entities and suppliers, society and  the law enforcement agencies about the procurement process. It gives a chance to discuss and evaluate the conditions of a specific procurement and analyze the procurements of an individual procurement entity.

DOZORRO community is a network of public organizations, procurement entities, businesses and everyone who is interested in raising the effectiveness of public procurements and maintenance of the level of playfield for everybody. The community members systematically control the government procurements and inform the proper authorities of any wrongdoings.