The Mayor’s Office of Bucaramanga plans to continue with the initiative in which vulnerable populations in Bucaramanga received subsidies to travel by public transportation.
In September 2021, the Bucaramanga Council approved draft agreement 030, which provided a subsidy for Metrolínea fares to the vulnerable population of the city.
Although the initiative was proposed since 2020, it was presented to the Corporation three times until it finally received approval from 18 lobbyists.
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The idea was to grant a 50% subsidy, that is, $1,300 of the ticket, to students from public institutions in strata 1, 2 and 3 of primary, secondary and technical, technological and university training who did not live close to their places of study, people with disabilities, athletes, artists and also adults aged 62 and over.
On paper, about 35,000 Bumangueses would benefit, however, due to the crisis in which the system entered, including the lack of routes, this figure did not exceed 5,000 users.
Well, last Friday, after the approval of Mayor Jaime Andrés Beltrán’s Development Plan by the Council, the differential rate initiative was reflected in one of the sections of the roadmap for this four-year period.
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In this regard, the councilor of Bucaramanga, Cristian Reyes, who was one of the authors of the initial subsidy project, stated that “in the Development Plan it was approved to continue and extend subsidies to public transportation for vulnerable populations.”
Reyes Aguilar said that, in addition to the populations that benefited in the past, such as students, older adults and people with disabilities, the idea is to include more Bumangueses who are users of public transportation.
“We will seek to include citizens who belong to the categories of Sisbén A, B and C and people from strata 1, 2 and 3. They would receive a 50% discount for two daily tickets, between Monday and Friday,” explained the lobbyist.
Thus, if the initiative is implemented, a user can save $2,600 per day, an average of $13,000 per week and no less than $52,000 pesos each month.
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Likewise, on this occasion the benefit could be extended to Conventional Public Transportation, as long as the buses have mechanisms such as validators for reading a smart card, taking into account that the benefit is loaded into the aforementioned technological means.
However, the materialization of the differential rate is subject to the future of the mass transportation system in the city and the beneficiary selection mechanisms are defined.
“The great challenge we have in this Administration is to structure or redesign intermodal public transportation that provides good service, goes to all neighborhoods and covers the needs of citizens,” said Reyes Aguilar.
