Bolivia: Public Transport in Santa Cruz

Public transport in Santa Cruz is a big problem, as noted by Professor Miriam Vidal. Bus fare has risen to 33% recently, and many schoolchildren are bypassed by drivers because they do not pay the full fare [es].

2 comments

  • Mervyn Mendis

    Hi!
    My wife and I have been going back to Santa Cruz (SC), Bolivia for the last five years, staying for a couple of months at a time in our apartment. We were amazed at the increase in traffic in SC.
    What I cannot understand (I am not Bolivian, my wife is)is that the Cruzanious(sp) spend their entire day commuting.
    These folks have 4 commutes a day. One in the morning, one coming back for lunch at 12 PM and for a NAP and one going back to work at 2.00pm and one coming back at 7 PM for the day. No wonder you have a traffice problem.

    If all the Cruzans gave up their nap then they would not be chasing each other down the road to go Nowhere in a hurry. Nobody wants to give you a break, that is rude.
    The excuse is we need to spend time with our family. Look at it this way if you did not have to rush home in the afternoon, if you ate your lunch at work, gave up your nap and got home early in the evening, you would have two commutes and a whole lot of time with the Family.

    How about having a LONG dinner with the family instead of a short Lunch.

    Besides the thing I noticed is that everybody is waiting at the Bank, in line at the Hippermaxi at the post office, what happend to efficency.

    A good example is this, at Cotas the telephone ,cable company in Bolivia. We could not cancel our telephone line whenever we wanted. This “bloke” at Cotas told us we had to wait till the end of the month. Refused a disconnet, even after we insisted that we would pay for the whole month.
    Progress, comes with education and a willingness to change. This must happen in Bolivia if you want to solve problems and get ahead.

    I do love Santa Cruz

    MM

  • Phil

    I live in La Paz and I am not Bolivian but English. I totally agree with the sentiment that efficency needs to improve in Bolivia. Of course I understand the limitations due to funding and education but believe attitude has alot to do with it. There are many people in Bolivia that just make things go slower just to give themselves a feeling of power over the customer/client etc. So many places just have completely inefficent systems or no systems at all , including many goverment run operations. It took me 3 months to get my resident visa renewal last time because the director of immigraion was on holiday – if there was any sense at at all they would have the authority delegated to the next person in charge – it is only a visa application not a big deal. When it camne to getting my carnet renewed they give you 10 days from receipt of your visa to apply with all the requirements and then fine you 5bs per day for each day after. It is impossible to get the requirements within that time (even just getting the interpol background check takes at least 14 days and you need this to get other things) and immigration know this – the just say yes it is impossible when you tell them and dont care that it is illegal to fine people for impossible requirements.Just one exmaple of many many I have (and still do) experienced whilst living here. That said – I love Bolivia and am staying – I pray there will not be a major escalation in the problems/tensions between the regions.

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