BARELY three months ago, the government announced plans for a £350 million cash injection in to the country’s ailing public transport infrastructure, setting as a target the increase in bus use from the current two per cent to 10 per cent by 2013.
Well, it seems as if that two per cent is about to fall, not rise, after bus firms announced this week they were being forced to scrap free bus passes for pensioners, because the £750,000 a year provided by the government to cover the cost was woefully inadequate. The subsidy, they said, broke down to a mere 29 cents per pensioner per month, compared to a single urban bus fare of 65 cents. Many pensioners used the bus several times a day, the bus companies pointed out, leaving operators with a huge shortfall.
The companies also complained they were being made to pay VAT to the government, but had not been allowed to add VAT to fares, eating ever further into their precarious finances. And they complained that their repeated pleas for improved infrastructure had fallen on deaf ears.
The government’s plan is for the years 2007-2013, and is dependant on EU money, so it may be that salvation is just around the corner. But for the bus companies to come out now, one has to assume there has been no communication between the two sides about future plans, if indeed those plans are a reality and not another empty promise.
The truth is that successive governments have shown no interest whatsoever in public transport, obsessed as they have been with building new roads and encouraging private car ownership. The results of those policies are now becoming apparent in gridlocked and polluted city centres, overflowing with cars that have nowhere to park and so have spread to pavements, junctions and double yellow lines.
Nicosia (let alone other towns) is small enough to sustain an extremely efficient bus service. Distances are small, and, with priority lanes, journey times would be minimal. Existing bus services do what they can, but, starved of public funds, their service is necessarily restricted. And with at least half an hour between buses and the service closing down around 7pm, they are completely inadequate for anyone tempted to use public transport to commute to work.
If the government is not willing to provide the money for those who still do use the buses regularly – pensioners – then what signal does that give of its intent? Certainly not one of a government on the brink of undertaking an expensive and ambitious overhaul of the country’s public transport network, but rather that of one intent on winding the system down to closure.
