Better Public Transportation Is Possible

Better Public Transportation Is Possible
June 1, 2010
Daisy Valera

I'd like to say the problem was solved, that the comical and modern
articulated Chinese buses improved the situation of transportation in Cuba.

I'd like to say that I can see the digital clock with red figures at the
entrance of the bus because no one is standing in front of me.

Truly, one of my greatest dreams is to at least be able to sit down a
few times in those beautiful blue or yellow plastic seats.

However, I can't say anything even approaching that. Transportation
remains practically in the same precarious situation as in the stage
before the Yutong buses came in the last few years.

Havana workers get up every morning and face our dear "camels" (the
popular term given to the national buses).

Running behind the bus is indispensable if you want to avoid being left
behind at bus stops for all eternity. However, it's not only running,
it's also pushing everyone who's are around you, and yelling at the
person in the doorway who prevents you from getting on – it doesn't
matter if it's a senior citizen, a pregnant woman or a child.

The situations at bus stops are almost those of life or death. The
lines never get any shorter, in fact it seems like they lengthen as the
days go by.

But the problem of our "camels" doesn't end here. It's not enough to
have gotten on the bus; inside these vehicles the violence is such that
you end up regretting having made it aboard.

If you need to catch a bus in Havana, you have to learn how to
appreciate the perspiration of your traveling companions, as well as the
odors of all types of people.

To get on a bus is to expose yourself to practically not being able to
breathe, with the mass of people crushing you; a bus ride means having
to suffer the faces of bitterness, fatigue, dissent, boredom and so many
others.

I put on the expression of not being on the bus. I imagine I'm in
another place. I maintain my look fixed on some point and try not to be
susceptible to the bad moods and violence that are generated within the
picturesque camels (I say "picturesque" because we have camels in
different colors; they range from yellow to pink, though the colors
don't remedy the displeasure).

It's a fact that transportation has improved since the darkest times of
our "Special Period" crisis that began in the 90s; however, one cannot
say that the situation has radically changed.

Many workers must go through the daily hassle implied by having to take
different buses to get around in the city. No one knows if this
situation will improve, everyone supposes that it'll continue to always
be this way.

I look at this situation differently, knowing that solutions and other
changes would not be so far off; if we were headed on the path to
socialism. Perhaps other people accompanying me on such an unpleasant
journey through the city do not share that hope since their suffering is
double; that's the product of having to endure the immediate situation
while lacking the long term dream that a better future is possible.

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