national

Japanese group studying bus system

LA PRENSA

outdated:The country’s public transportation system is badly in need of an upgrade.978071

Since President Martín Torrijos came into office in May of 2004, he has been promising to make substantial changes to Panama's public transportation system.

Now, as the clock ticks down on his term in office, there is no concrete plan in place to accomplish this goal.

In a televised speech this week, Torrijos said that a group of Japanese engineers are in the country studying the system to develop a proposal for the government. That proposal is expected to be ready in the next two months.

But the government is mindful that any change must take into account the financial situation of the people who use the system, and it must not be rushed or else it could leave hundreds of thousands of people stranded.

"Although it is true that the service does not meet the expectations or demands of users, [the Government] needs to ensure that the transportation system will [one day] provide decent transportation to all Panamanians," said Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro.

Navarro also conceded that, regardless of what is accomplished by the current government, the problem most likely will be inherited by the next administration.

Over the years the government has been given proposals from French, Japanese, Brazilian and Colombian entrepreneurs on how to upgrade the system. They have offered a range of alternatives from building an elevated train to simply purchasing a fleet of new buses.

Another idea has been to end the use of private vehicles, the so-called "diablos rojos," and replace them with a government-operated system. Such a system would use articulated buses, which have a larger capacity than traditional buses. They have worked well in countries such as Colombia and Chile.

Perhaps the closest the Torrijos administration came to solving the problem was when former Autoridad de Tránsito y Transporte Terrestre (ATTT) Director Angelino Harris was in office. He was poised to implement a major overhaul to the system, but was forced out of office in the wake of a tragic bus fire that killed 18 people.

Harris had said the train idea was too expensive for Panama, and that the articulated buses would probably be the best option.

He had promised a new transportation system by the end of 2007, but that promise remains unfulfilled.