Last spring, the manager of a Goris hotel told the story about a Beirut-Armenian tourist getting fined by a local traffic cop for jaywalking.

Given that the alleged violation took place late at night, the hapless tourist went out the next morning to see why he hadn’t noticed the traffic light. To his surprise, there was no traffic light at the intersection in question. In fact, he saw no traffic lights at any intersection in Goris.

We couldn’t verify the story and the local traffic cops laughed it away. The tourist has since departed, most likely with the memory of the unsupervised road traffic in this southern Armenian town.

Aram Galstyan, head of a local traffic unit, says that road accidents were up 10-12% in 2011 over the previous year. Fatalities due to accidents also remained constant.

Galstyan pointed out that a number of factors were at play besides the absence of traffic lights. He mentioned the lack of any type of road signs or the painting of street and crossing lanes.

He said that each road sign costs around 41,000 AMD and that Goris could use about 400 signs.

The traffic chief claims that he’s gone to the Goris Municipality on several occasions, asking that funds be allocated for this purpose.

“It seems to be a lost cause. Each traffic light costs some 10 million AMD,” Galstyan said.

He added that they had tried to negotiate with Yerevan authorities to get the city’s old traffic lights now replaced with digital versions.

Goris Mayor Nelson Voskanyan says the town just doesn’t have the funds.

The Goris town budget amounts to 341 million AMD. It’s hard to predict if any funds will be allocated to installing a few traffic lights at major intersections.

The town wants to take steps to develop its nascent tourist sector. Some steps have been taken in this direction.

One would think that tourists, like our anonymous friend from Beirut, would find a traffic light or two to be most assuring.