Today (12 November), Mongolian parliament has approved State Budget for 2022. The MNT 18 trillion (USD 6.2 billion) spending plan for the fiscal year starting 1 January, 2022 received the backing of majority of 76 lawmakers.

According to the budget plan, Mongolia is expecting to invest MNT 1.7 trillion for developing energy, construction as well as road and transportation sectors. For example, Government has approved MNT 420 billion (USD 145 million) for reducing traffic congestion and improving public transportation of Ulaanbaatar, capital city of Mongolia.

Traffic congestion is one of serious problems of modern Ulaanbaatar city. Currently, over 530,000 cars are registered in Ulaanbaatar; this figure increases annually by 70,000 cars and is expected to reach one million cars by 2025.

Over the years, the Ulaanbaatar City Administration has attempted to  is implement various projects for reducing traffic jam. One of these was the Bus Rapid Transport – or BRT project for short. Initially supported by the Asian Development Bank, the BRT was put on hold in 2015, due to the proposed construction of the Ulaanbaatar Metro. In this project a 17.7 kilometer underground line was to be constructed from the Officers’ Palace to the Sonsgolon Bridge, essentially along Peace Avenue connecting the east  and west of sides of Ulaanbaatar. The disruption constructing a metro would cause in this hyper-congested city, which has only one main east to west thoroughfare, is almost unimaginable.  Now, the metro plan has been dropped.