TRANSPORTATIONIN CUBA TODAY

Mario J Torres

In Cuba there is practically no means of transportation supplied by the state: almost no regular local buses or taxis. Instead, a variety of new means of transportation have arisen:

(a) Horse and buggy
(b) Taxi-bikers
(c) "Pirate" taxi-drivers
(d) Trucks with trailers carrying people like cattle.
(e) People's own bicycles
(f) On foot

Many people solve their transportation problems by patiently standing in a long line waiting until a man leading a horse and buggy arrives and packs them up towards their destination bumping and swinging in a slow, agonic, awful, uncomfortable, long, and expensive journey. This kind of "picturesque scenery" suggests a travel through time more than 100 years back in history which for sure will not be seen nowadays anyhwere in the world.

Bicycles have been adapted with a sidecar, and poor riders take two or three people with their luggage or bags through kilometers of either hills, rain, mud, or dark to earn their living. These bikers must pay the state high taxes for their work.
Car owners (most American cars are from 1958 or before and they are well preserved because the most recent ones have been Russian) illegally charge
desperate passengers a lot of money for taking them to their destinations.

Some other car owners have legal permits, but they must pay a high fee to thestate.There are doctors or engineers with Russian cars who "lease" them to otherdrivers so as to get some money without exposing themselves to any risk
and they go to work on a bicycle.
Potent truck engines have been prepared, and large trailers have beenhooked up to their rear. These trailers can pack lots of people mostly standing.This is very uncomfortable and almost unbearable due to the large number of people that gather inside, the lack of air, the pickpockets, the sweat, the pushing, and the shoving, etc. This is the basic means of transportation in Havana City and they are popularly called CAMELS because of the shape of their trailers.

The government has also sold one bicycle to every citizen, so doctors, teachers, dentists, and other professionals ride on bikes to their jobs, and the streets become full of bikes during rush hours. Big state and private (with permit) bike parking lots have been prepared everywhere in every city in which many people earn their living as parking lot attendants, preventing robbery which has increased considerably.
Government officials, on the contrary, travel by car and have a special gas supply that the few regular car owners in the population do not have access to.
Inter-province transportation has to be scheduled more than one month before traveling because of the reduced number of buses, trains, or planes; and many people have to sleep in bus terminals or get into long waiting lists to preserve their tickets.

In the island, brands of new cars have never been seen except for tourist service which is equipped with everything and Havana seems to be divided into the tourist section, bright and luxurious and the people's section, dark with blackouts and soot.

Finally, if anybody who is not going too far rejects all of the above alternatives, he'd better go on foot.

All this is not due to any embargo, but to the stubborness of a dictator.

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