Thanks jilatanaka chuphirunaka

Thanks my driver brothers!

Last time I heard about change prices in the public transportation in Paris, it was because they wanted to reduce the difference between the fares for people living in Paris and people living far away in the suburbs. People that live far away and use the public transportation system are usually poor and not only they have to spend more time in buses or trains, but they have to pay more. The idea was to make pay more people that live in Paris (who are usually richer). Another benefit they expected of this politic was that people would use less their own cars and therefore pollute less.

Here, in La Paz, we use to have only to fares: short and long distances. But recently the public transportation drivers want to have more than 5 different fares according to distance. Who will pay more? People living in the South Zone (the richest) will continue to pay the same prices or less and those who live far away (the poorer) will pay twice or three times the price...

For now the government refused to accept this fares, in consequence, the drivers found a way to apply this unfair fares anyway:
First of all, they have reduce the distances they drive, so to make the same trip now you have to take two different buses (a long distance and a short distance for example when you used to take just one long distance). At the end you pay a lot more (when you go further than the city center).
Second point, they prefer to drive as "radio-taxis" (they are a lot more expensive (8 times more than the most expensive: the Trufi) than anything else). In consequence, there are less buses or mini-buses and the queues are longer than ever (more than 100 meters at night).

Well, talking about this queues, a year ago, there were no queues at all. We use to jump in the bus with no specific order. Now, there are no buses or mini-buses so people learnt to organize themselves and queue.


Hereunder an explanation of the different kinds of public transportation:
* Radio-taxis or taxis: theses are like any taxis you may know (you'll go from any point A to any point B, and you'll be alone). Their fares are 8 times those from TRUFIs.
* TRUFIs: theses are small cars, they can carry out to 5 passengers (we love road security), they are the most expensive common public transportation and there are not many lines. Their speed is around 50 km/h
* Mini-buses: they can carry out to 14 passengers, most lines are ran by them. They have medium fares and their speed is around 30 km/h.
* Buses: they can carry as much passengers as they can breathe inside. They are the cheapest and the slowest. They have many lines but not as much as the mini-buses.