‘Don’t give up on the buses’

 

THE PUBLIC bus system has taken off in leaps and bounds in just over a year and the government must not give up on it, former communications and works minister Nicos Nicolaides said yesterday. 

The bus companies that comprise the public transport network told parliament on Thursday that they would not be able to meet running costs on a €46 million 2012 budget which would be mostly spent on covering fuel costs, they said. 

“Of course there is a financial crisis … but we have to have a long term view of this issue and not a short sighted one,” EDEK MP Nicos Nicolaides told the Cyprus Mail. 

Nicolaides was communications minister in 2009 when the contract was signed for a new public bus network, replacing what was in his own words “an ineffective and sub-standard public transport system.” 

The new system, effective from July 2010, almost tripled the number of bus tickets sold from 600,000 in July 2010 to 1.6 million this July. 

It caters to about 50,000 students and retirees and has taken tens of villages out of their previous isolation, Nicolaides said. 

“For the first time you can see full buses in Cyprus. Just visit the coastal strip in Limassol or take the tourist route in Paphos or Ayia Napa and Protaras,” he said.

This marks a “sensational change,” which benefits the economy by “saving tens of millions of euros a year on fuel costs,” helps safeguard the environment and public health and reduces traffic accidents, the former minister said.

MPs have warned that the new bus system is struggling.

 “There is an immediate danger that companies will not be able to respond in the next few months,” said Antonis Antoniou, chairman of the House Communications Committee.

Bus companies are still waiting to receive 30 per cent of their 2010 subsidy with the delay “creating a liquidity problem.”

Companies told legislators they owed €40 million in loans, were required to replace one third of their fleet by the end of the year and had no money to do any of that.  

Additionally, there are shortcomings in infrastructure, bus stops, stations, information, there are also inefficient routes and prejudice against buses, Nicolaides said. 

Cypriots are notorious for shunning public transport in favour of their cars. The vast majority of people who use buses are foreigners, secondary-school pupils and the elderly.

Road Transport Department’s Sotiris Kolettas told legislators on Thursday they needed more time to work on routes.

“The budget on public transport must have provisions to keep public transport’s prospects alive,” Nicolaides said.  

“It’s not a project spanning a few months, we knew this from the beginning,” Nicolaides said adding that it will take years “before we can say we are finally a modern country in relation to public transport.”