20 kilometers from Havana, the sun burns the roofs of several dozen buses. Some, already without tires, are placed on their sides on the ground; others have broken windshieldsmany rickety doors.
Each one of the units of this kind of cemetery in the town of Guanabacoa, to the east of the capital, which extends for two blocks, cost about $200,000. An amount that the same authorities recognize as unaffordable to renew or restore the fleet.
On the other side of town Beatriz Gómez, a 48-year-old electrocardiogram technician, struggle to get, however, to get home in Alamar from Old Havana -about 20 minutes away- after eight hours of work to “invent” something for his family to have dinner.
In addition to blackouts, shortages, and long lines to get almost anything, many Cubans they must deal with an insufficient transportation system. A problem that, although it is not new, has forced the islanders to look for other alternatives to mobilize in view of the fact that there will be no immediate solution.
Nuisance
“I get up at 4:30 in the morning, I look for an ‘A-40’ bus (bus) in (the area of) Micro Diez. There are times that I arrive early, other times after eight (in the morning)”, said Gómez. “Look at what time it is and we’re still here!” She complained at the bus stop when, after six in the evening and before returning home, The Associated Press interviewed her. “It’s getting very difficult for me”.
Gomez consumes about four hours a day waiting to travel 15 kilometers to go from one side to the other.
The transportation deficit is most noticeable in Havana, where two million people live. In December 2021, the general director of Transportation of Havana, Leandro Méndez, told official media that of the 878 buses that the capital had at that time only 435 were operational, 49%. That figure was not updated again.
In addition, in Cuba there are relatively few private cars and most of the scarce vehicle fleet is concentrated in state companies.
Given the shortage of buses, Cubans have opted for electric motorcycles or more or less legal private taxis.
If those alternatives fail, they have two other unique ways to get around: stand next to some inspectors dressed in blue uniforms located at strategic points in the city that stop state cars -recognizable by their license plates- and, after verifying the driver’s destination, they load two or three people. The other is “the bottle”, the ride or “raid”, as it is usually called in other places in Latin America and which on the island is a safe method.
“The Cuban model cannot be based only on having a bus (bus)… The State has to look for alternative means of transportation that cannot be war transportation, that is, stopping a state vehicle to move four or five people . Quick and massive solutions must be sought,” said Cuban economist Omar Everleny Pérez, for whom the idea of building a subway or promoting the railway is a priority. However, the problem of the lack of financial resources would persist.
In February, the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez, admitted on television the progressive deterioration of the sector over the last three years, which, he said, led to “a lower offer of services and, therefore, great dissatisfaction.”
the official attributed the problem to a lack of dollars in the state for parts, the aging of the fleet and the lack of fuel caused by the economic paralysis of the pandemic and the increase in sanctions by the United States.
According to Rodríguez, every year 40 million dollars are needed only for the maintenance of the buses, without counting the reinvestment in new units. A bus costs more than 200,000 dollars and a ferry – like those that cross the Bay of Havana – about 10 million dollars, he revealed.
in fuel more than 80,000 liters of diesel are used daily in public transport in the capital and it is urgent to import tires, batteries, engine parts and spare parts, Rodríguez said.
Only then could the units abandoned in bus stops like the ones the AP saw in Guanabacoa get back on their feet.
no money
“The public transportation system is another example the degree of decapitalization of the Cuban economy”, commented to AP the economist Pavel Vidal, of the Javeriana University of Cali, Colombia. “At times, buses and locomotives have been purchased and credits have been obtained… But then replacement and maintenance are not guaranteed.”
Pérez and Vidal agreed that the solution is not to privatize the service or make it more expensive, but rather to reconcile the state initiative with the private and be efficient.
“There are capitals in Europe where the transportation system is public. You arrive in Paris, with the same number of inhabitants as the (Cuban) capital and it has a metro, tram, bus, electric trains,” Pérez said.
Cuba tried to compensate for the lack of buses -whose tickets are cheap because they are subsidized by the State- with small minibuses called gazelles, a plan implemented by driver cooperatives in partnership with state agencies that began before the pandemic but was ultimately not expanded. Also through the implementation of electric tricycles with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
As a last option, the Cubans have shared private taxis. Many of them are old classic American or Soviet cars that have had their engines renewed.
For Gómez, for example, this alternative from Old Havana, where he works, to his house would cost no less than 150 Cuban pesos (six dollars at the official exchange rate) for a 20-minute journey, when by bus he would pay two pesos (less than 10 cents) and the average salary in Cuba is 4,000 pesos -about 160 dollars- per month.
PA Agency
PB