This week marked the debut of the new public transportation system, called Transantiago (ES) . The government and private companies have invested (ES) US$ 292.5 million. Changing the transportation system is a major issue, because they also had to change people's habits. No more coins, no more waiting times. No long journeys. This system is run in the capital of Santiago with its population of over 5 million.
On its first day, hundreds of complaints about its service have circulated the Chilean Blogosphere. Every social change in behaviour takes some time to adjust. This new system only started on Februrary 10 so we need some time to get used to it.
Luis Alarcón (ES) has his own view of Transantiago, which also gives us an idea of what the transportation system was like before and the dimension of the change:
Imagina lo siguiente: “Te vas al trabajo y subes a un moderno bus que pasa a un horario indicado, para pagar no necesitas monedas solo pasas una tarjeta por un lector y se te descuenta de tu saldo, tiene rampla para discapacitados y marcas para invidentes, además los choferes son amables y educados también es posible que tengas que hacer algunas combinaciones para llegar a tu destino, no importa, puedes bajarte del bus y tomar otro sin tener mayor recargo en tu tarjeta o bien puedes conectar tu viaje trasladándote en una de las tantas líneas de metro que recorren la ciudad.
La imagen podría decirse que ocurre en alguna ciudad europea o ciudad muy desarrollada, pero no, está ocurriendo en Santiago de Chile en plena Sudamérica, se llama “Transantiago” y es la apuesta más ambiciosa del presente gobierno por ordenar un tremendo parque de autobuses, elevar la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos de cara al bicentenario y sobre todo hacer un completo cambio al transporte urbano.
Describing the experience over the last few days and the people's reaction, Cristián Muñoz (ES) wrote:
Luego de 3 días de semi colapso de la ciudad, de pequeñas muestras de caos urbano, de mostrar la peor cara, la de una desorganización de Santiago, las cosas finalmente funcionan, las partes básicas de este mecanismo funcionan, engranó, se afiató, cuajó. El Transantiago está en marcha. Ok, podrían decirme que estoy loco, que cómo tan positivo, etc, etc. Pero no es así, soy bastante crítico con el sistema, pero no hay que desconocer que por lo menos ahora las cosas andan mejor. La frecuencia de los buses ha mejorado, en los paraderos no se juntan cantidades sorprendentes de personas, ya no. Ahora está todo un poco más organizado. Incluso ya comenzaron a aparecer soluciones inteligentes y otras que son más de criterio. Hoy se vieron filas en los paraderos, algo que NUNCA se había visto en Santiago. La gente se dió cuenta que esto ya no tiene vuelta atrás y que debe ordenarse, al final, el sistema nos sirve a todos. Y lo otro, el directorio del Metro sentó cabeza (o se la hicieron sentar) y ampliará, desde el 1 de Marzo, el horario de funcionamiento del tren metropolitano. Ahora abrirá a las 6 de la mañana, media hora antes de lo actual.
Tomorrow the “Transantiago Users Committee” is organizing a protest(ES) . The people that are on this committee are the ones that used to sing on the buses, sell things and also some community neighbourhoods. All of these people used to gain their salary on buses. This is one of the things with the government is dealing with. Also, most of the Chileans, used to take a daily nap on the bus, while they were going to work, or after work. Some times were on the bus for an hour and a half. Now, they can get home quickly by changing buses or to the tube, so no more “public transportation nap culture.”
3 comments
At the same time the Transantiago was on its debut, I was riding a great bus in NYC, with its very good way of paying, just a little expensive. So in that time I was thinking, how cool it would be to have this kind of bus system in my city (Santiago). Time later, just arrived to my hotel, I was surfing the internet and got the very bad news of the Transantiago, it wasn´t working that good. I came back to Chile and of course rode a bus. I was pretty impressed with it; all the bad news what I had read, seemed to be a lie, everything was working great; in the bus-stop I didn´t wait a minute for it, I didn´t have any problem with my Bip! card (the card used for paying the transportation) and actually I felt as well as in the New York bus, and definitively felt much much better in the Santiago subway than the New York´s.
In summary I´d say that this new system is going pretty good, there´s not a doubt that it needs time, but not only the system and its drivers, also the population; I could see people very bad educated not making the things better. So congratulations to Santiago, the capital of south america and the developing countries and please pacience, every change needs time.
Having been informed of your new transport system by a close friend who lives near Santiago and works in the city I am reminded of how a similar system was received in ny area of South Yorkshire,England a few years ago.It takes time for these new things to be accepted and of course there are faults to be ironed that is how things evolve and hopefully improve.