Bohemia magazine points out that of the 1,000 State buses, 397 are unusable, and 230 are under repair or without fuel
14ymedio, Havana, 11 October 2024 — Traveling is a nightmare in Cuba, but few official media translate the problem into numbers. Bohemia did it this Friday, publishing devastating figures after an interview with the head of the National Bus Company, Aidel Linares. Of the 1,000 buses owned by the entity, only 603 work. There are actually 128 that are leased, so that makes only 475. To top it off, between breakdowns and lack of fuel, about 230 remain in the terminals.
A country that can have 245 buses a day on the roads, in addition to the 128 leased ones, can only describe its situation – and so Bohemia does – as a source of “anxiety.”
Precise in the numbers, Linares gets lost when it comes to assigning guilt and does not allude even once to Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, the charismatic Minister of Transport who has earned some popularity on social networks denouncing the problems of the sector, but without stating what he will do about it. For his subordinate, the causes of the debacle are the usual: the blockade*, lack of fuel and deterioration of the vehicles.
According to Linares, about 9,500 people travel on State interprovincial buses every day. Five years ago, when the situation was nothing to be celebrated either, 17,500 were transported. In addition, the company faces a radical decrease in its routes. Now it has only 114 active routes, when years ago it operated 409.
According to Linares, the country’s priority is to never miss routes that are backbones, such as Havana-Batabanó, Pinar del Río-Santiago de Cuba and, by rail, the train from the western capital to the eastern one.
According to Linares, the country’s priority is never to miss routes that are backbones
Bohemia illustrates the situation with several testimonies. One is Roberto’s, 63 years old, who must travel 800 kilometers from Havana to Santiago de Cuba to see his daughter and grandchildren. The case is typical, but it has complicated life for the man, who has been watching for weeks how the tickets escape him every day in the Tulipán and Factor agency, in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución.
Nor has Roberto had luck with the Viajando (Traveling) application, difficult to handle for young people and impossible for people his age. Bohemia explains that the collapse of Viajando is due to the lack of capacity of national servers, excessive demand and problems when paying and finalizing the procedure.
The Viajero Company – which manages the application – has ignored customer suggestions, says Bohemia. It has been asked to “market the tickets in a staggered manner, at different times, separating routes of greater and lower demand, and types of transport” — in vain. Rodríguez Dávila has complained about the situation but has not pressured Viajando either.
For several months, another problem has worried customers: buses that circulate with empty seats, pass by the stops and keep going. “When the bus goes by, doesn’t the GPS detect it?” protests Michel, one of the passengers interviewed by the magazine. There is, obviously, “complicity with the checkers and shift bosses,” which is the best evidence that there is “a criminal group in charge of the already diminished ticket reservation system.”
Even dead people buy tickets, according to Bohemia. Those dedicated to the business of reselling them have started using the identities of deceased people to access a ticket, a piece of information that Rodríguez Dávila had already revealed during the recent ordinary sessions of Parliament.
This situation led the State to call for a “crusade against resellers,” which has borne little fruit. The solution that will be implemented, in the words of Rodríguez Dávila, is to urge the population to take out their Single Citizen Card, but – adds Bohemia – “in the opinion of various customers, this excessive security is frustrating.”
“The blackouts also hit us,” Linares explained. “If we are taking a punch, little or nothing can be done until the electricity is restored.” The percentage of punctuality has fallen, from 99% to 88%, a more than dubious figure in a country where no vehicle leaves or arrives on time at the terminal. Many times the problem is a breakdown “in a remote place.” The usual repair time is three hours. “We often fail to comply,” admits the manager.
At times like this, people get nervous, no matter if they are standing under the sun on the road or waiting in the terminal
At times like this, people get nervous, no matter if they are standing under the sun on the road or waiting in the terminal. “A few days ago we delayed an exit for 45 minutes, Havana-Matanzas, because the bus coming from Pinar del Río was delayed, and five people were on their way to board it. Some understood, but there was a lot of discomfort,” says Linares.
The Union of Railways of Cuba, for its part, says it has experienced “a remarkable advance” in its service, because it has resurrected several routes that were given up for lost. Investments from France and the promise of Russian money have somewhat oxygenated the sector. However, “it’s not enough,” the officials insist.
The biggest problem is the duration of the journey, which on its longest routes sometimes reaches 20 hours without the train being in a good enough condition to go that far. In some of them, after many years of operation, “not even a simple light bulb has been changed since they arrived in the country .”
But vehicles and their deterioration are only part of the problem. The other is the condition of the roads and railways. In Santiago de Cuba, the State newspaper Granma boasted this Friday that 80,000 tons of asphalt have been spread on the streets of the province since 2023. However, there are still “thousands of kilometers in bad condition, and many are totally eroded and impassable.”
This year, they hope to have 27,400 tons of asphalt, a notable decrease compared to 2023. The neighbors in the periphery of Santiago have protested, because the authorities only repair the historic center and have forgotten about “the interior neighborhoods.” There are many “limitations” and “complaints,” says Granma, which promises – with the usual enthusiasm – a “moncadista”** assault” on the most battered streets of Santiago. Better times will come, promises the Communist Party newspaper, in 2025.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Translator’s notes:
*There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
**A reference to the failed attack on the Moncada army barracks, led by Fidel Castro in 1953.
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