14ymedio, Havana, 7 September 2016 – The P15 bus now begins its route at the Santa Fe Bridge and new routes with the letter A have appeared in Havana’s bus system as of the end of August. The changes in the route names and destinations has been the result of a proposal from the Planning Department in the Provincial Transport Agency to ease service problems, but bus riders have not embraced the changes.
The reorganization of the bus routes in the capital began on Sunday, 28 August, in the zone east of the city, but at the beginning of this month it was extended throughout the city. In many neighborhoods the changes coincided with the beginning of the school year, which caused real chaos among riders, who don’t know if the route they’re waiting for still comes to the same stops or if it has been renamed.
The changes were made following the recommendations of a study undertaken by the authorities about the mobility of Havanans and the network of routes circulating, but the deficiency in information has hindered its event. An attempt was made to eliminate parallel routes, the longest routes and the least direct routes, but the result has been confusion and a sense of making the problem worse.
“Before I never knew what time I would get to work, but not I don’t even know if a bus is going to come by here,” a woman waiting for the bus near the Monaco Cinema in the 10 de Octubre district of Havana said on Tuesday morning.
