New transport plan to end corridor pirate buses

PIRATE BUSES    will disappear from the corridors next year as fares on Metro buses drop and frequency increases says President Juan Carlos Varela.

He announced on Thursday ,September 15,   that from January 2017 that there will be a “significant reduction” of Metro Bus prices on  the North and South corridors.

Varela’s statements  came after a meeting with Mi Bus company executives.
They presented him with the transport system  “Improvement Plan”, which includes the unification of fares between the Metro Bus and Metro subway systems, and the renewal of the fleet

He said the official announcement would be  in mid-October, after the plan  was submitted to the Cabinet Council later this month.
Currently, a user of the Metro Bus traveling on the corridors  pays  a fee of $1.25.

Meanwhile, “busito pirates” provide the service for  between $1.25 and  $1.50.

Streamlined service
The president acknowledged that the corridor routes are not very fast, for various reasons, so the improvement plan also proposes streamlining the Metro Bus units.

A journey that  now takes more than an hour would reduce that time by  25 minutes from 2017.

Between $36 million and  $40 million has been budgeted for renewing the bus fleet. Each month for a year and a half 60 buses, will be changed.
He said  that the days of the “busito pirates” on  the corridors are numbered and  within a year “They will be gone,” he said.