transportation

Panama rides cheaply

ATTT director Heraclio Batista said the country’s low bus fares complicate planning for a new transportation system.

Panama’s public transportation system offers the cheapest ride in all of Central America, according to Heraclio Batista, director of the Autoridad de Tránsito y Transporte Terrestre (ATTT). “A passenger pays 25 cents to go from La Doña [a mall], in Tocumen, to Plaza 5 de mayo, in the city center, a distance of 25 kilometers. That comes out to be a penny per kilometer,” said the ATTT official.

The low fares make the job of overhauling the transportation system a complex subject. And then there’s the bus union’s resistance to change, the helter-skelter routes that defy study and the relentless rise in fuel prices.

Batista was speaking at a forum hosted this week by the Cámara Panameña de la Construcción, in which he censured the government for not having finished the first phase of the Transmóvil plan, which includes purchasing new buses and establishing fixed routes.

Studies conducted by ATTT showed that 50 percent of the city's population travels by bus, mainly for the purpose of working and studying. Rush hour traffic was found to move at an average speed of 18 kilometers, or 11 miles, per hour, lengthening commuting times considerably.