On Friday, 24 July, the Ungheni city hall drew attention to a problem that recurs week after week: on market days — Thursdays and Sundays — Alexandru cel Bun Street becomes, “in many cases, nearly impassable.” The reason cited by the administration: some drivers do not obey the signs installed on the street precisely to keep the route flowing and to prevent jams during peak hours.
Alexandru cel Bun Street crosses the city center, and on Thursdays and Sundays it takes on part of the flow moving to and from the market. On those two days, trade brings shoppers into the center from the city and from the district’s villages, and cars that stop or park where they are not allowed narrow the roadway and turn traffic into a string of stops.
The administration’s appeal is, in essence, one of traffic discipline: drivers are asked to heed the signs already installed, so that traffic flows during the busy hours.
The problem, however, is not isolated from the rest of the center. The same pressure — too many cars for too few places to stop — also appears on Națională Street, the busiest in the city, where the city hall introduced an alternating-parking regime and tows away cars left in the morning in the path of the street cleaning. There too, in the comments, residents had pointed out that in the morning “many people come from the villages to shop,” which worsens the congestion. The city’s agri-food market, located on Decebal Street, is under construction.
For drivers, the practical takeaway is about planning: on Thursdays and Sundays, peak hours bring heavier traffic to Alexandru cel Bun than the rest of the week, and the street’s signs are there to untangle it. As for the underlying pressure — the number of parking spaces in the center — that remains a bigger problem than a single appeal to drivers can solve.