A new ticket price system including graduated rate and hidden price increase imposed by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality has claimed the life of an 18-year-old student in Turkey’s western metropolitan of Izmir.
Berkay Çiftçi, an 18-year-old student, wanted to board a suburban train at Gaziemir station on May 22.
According to new ticket price system imposed by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, run by Aziz Kocaoğlu from main opposition CHP party, Berkay Çiftçi’s transportation card had to have enough money to afford the charge for the longest distance to be able to get on the train.
Yet, he scanned his card to the machine, Çiftçi saw that he has no sufficient fund in his card to get on the train. Thereupon, he decided to jump from the wire nettings around the train station in order to not to be late for school. Just then, a Turkish State Railways train hit the student.
A medical team coming to the scene upon the report of eyewitnesses identified Çiftçi had lost his life.
The student would attend his high school graduation ceremony two days later. Çiftçi’s classmates say that two more friends of them had previously lost their lives due to electric shock and cancer.
WHAT IS THE NEW TICKET PRICE SYSTEM?
According to the new ticket price system imposed since February 15 people must have sufficient fund [at least 7,86 Turkish lira] in their cards to be able to get on the suburban trains [called ‘İZBAN’] regardless of the distance covered. Thus, they need to have enough money to afford the charge for the most distant station in their transportation cards even if they would get off the train just after two or three stations.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY FILED A CASE AGAINST THE MUNICIPALITY’S IMPOSITION
Before the enforcement of the Municipality’s imposition, the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) had collected thousands of signatures at İZBAN stations and demanded the annulment of the implementation.
Conveying approximately 100,000 signatures to Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, TKP had filed an Administrative Court case for the annulment of the unjust imposition after the negative response of the Municipality.
