Today, Friday, April 18, Costa Rican residents and visitors will see bus prices rise once again. Each one of the 3,642 different fares on Costa Rica’s 732 bus routes will go up between ¢5 and ¢250, mostly depending on the length of trip.
For many long-term residents, these increases are no surprise. La Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep, or the Public Services Regulating Authority) periodically approves rate hikes to cover increased operational and administrative costs. The main reason for tomorrow’s rate increase is due to higher oil prices.
San José’s Periférica (peripheral route) will go up ¢10, many nearby San José suburbs (Sabana, San Pedro, Pavas, Desamparados, etc.) will increase ¢5-¢10, and the San José-Alajuela routes will climb ¢15. Long-haul buses will increase by larger amounts, like San José-Liberia’s ¢120 increase to ¢2,575 and the ¢100 change in the San José-Limón route.
In addition to rate changes, el Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT, or the Ministry of Public Works and Transport) has unveiled major changes to the city’s public transportation. To begin, MOPT plans to have the 100 yellow school buses, which run between city sectors like the Periférica, increase to 1 every 10 minutes during hora pico (rush hour) and 1 every 20 minutes during regular hours. The inter-city buses should be able to complete their routes in 1 hour, provided that they can travel between 15 and 25 kilometers per hour.
In addition, Viviana Martín, Viceminister of Transportation, says that MOPT plans to improve city roads, such as the location of road “islands” and the eventual widening of streets on several well-traveled routes. During the second semester of 2008, MOPT also hopes to begin employing the use of electronic bus payments, which is the first phase of of a greater modernization plan.
One of MOPT’s main objectives is to actually reduce the number of public buses in San José. As any rush hour traveler can attest to, traffic in the city’s downtown has reached epic levels, and travel from one end to the other (Escazú-Curridabat, for example) can take well over 1.5 hours. To combat this problem, MOPT plans to add more inter-city/inter-suburb routes and in so doing, remove about 900 buses from the city’s streets.
Under these new plans, instead of having to travel from one suburb to San José, and then San José to the next suburb, you’ll be able to hop on a direct suburb-suburb route. For the 65% of Costa Rican residents that use public transportation, these new routes will save time and expense, with costs between ¢270 (Guadalupe-La Uruca) and ¢475 (Santa Ana-San Antonio-La Valencia).
There are 7 planned routes: Desmparados-Moravia (passing through Curridabat and San Pedro), Hatillo-Guadalupe (passing through San Pedro and Desamparados), La Uruca-Escazú (passing through Rohrmoser), Guadalupe-La Uruca, Moravia-La Valencia (passing through Tibás), Santa Ana-San Antonio-La Valencia (passing through Cariari and Heredia), and Hatillo-Alajuelita-Escazú (passing through San Sebastián).
Though prices are going up, MOPT plans to improve city bus service and reduce city traffic, which will be welcomed by both frequent users of San José’s buses, and the drivers who share the streets with them.
