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HAVANA, Feb 05 (IPS) – Jorge Sarmientos mentioned he made a great funding when he purchased an electrical motorbike to get round and keep away from the nervousness suffered by the customers of Cuba’s poor public transportation system or the excessive costs of personal options.
“It was costly, however I gained independence,” Sarmientos, a Havana-based accountant, instructed IPS. “Transportation has by no means been good right here. When there isn’t a scarcity of buses, there are shortages of spare elements or gas. Costs must be lowered or there must be amenities for extra individuals to accumulate electrical autos.”
Official information point out that half 1,000,000 electrical bikes are on the roads on this Caribbean island nation of 11 million inhabitants, a type of transportation that helps individuals and households get round.
Over the past decade, using electrical autos has elevated in Cuba, based mostly on customs authorizations for his or her importation.
Extra just lately, the home trade has begun to assemble totally different fashions, together with electrical bicycles and three-wheelers, utilizing elements imported largely from China.
However the truth that they’re primarily bought in international foreign money is a hurdle to increasing gross sales.
The most cost effective fashions in state-owned shops exceed 1,000 {dollars}, whereas others go for as a lot as 6,000 {dollars}.
In Cuba, the typical month-to-month wage is equal to about 35 {dollars} based on the official trade price, or about 16 {dollars} within the casual market.
In response to reviews, nearly 40 hybrid buses (alternating diesel and electrical energy) have been added to Havana’s deteriorated fleet of public buses in recent times, a know-how that saves 25 to 30 % of gas and is much less polluting.
However the extreme inside financial disaster and the scarcity of international foreign money are hindering actions to extend the variety of one hundred pc electrical autos with a view to steadily decarbonize public transportation.
Some firms and establishments have acquired electrical vehicles, which deliver reductions in upkeep prices.
![Electric three-wheelers or ecotaxis help alleviate transportation problems in the municipality of Boyeros, one of the 15 that make up the Cuban capital. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/02/aa-1.jpg)
Native options
Within the case of Havana, from 2019 to 2023 the Neomovilidad undertaking was carried out, which amongst its targets aimed to strengthen the regulatory framework for an environment friendly transition to a low-emission city transportation system.
Along with prioritizing variables reminiscent of a gender method and the inclusion of various age teams, the undertaking supplied a pilot public bicycle rental station, run by an area improvement undertaking led by younger individuals.
It additionally created three routes of three-wheeled electrical ecotaxis pushed primarily by ladies in outlying neighborhoods of Boyeros, one of many 15 municipalities that make up Havana.
The three-wheelers are gentle, motorized autos with a capability for six passengers within the again, just like the autorickshaws or tuktuks which are frequent in Asia. Right here they’re additionally referred to as motocarros or mototaxis.
“I feel they’re an ideal choice for getting round rapidly over quick distances, and at reasonably priced costs,” retiree Gloria Almaguer, a resident of the Fontanar neighborhood in Boyeros, instructed IPS. “The unhealthy factor is that there aren’t sufficient to cowl demand, they will carry only some individuals, and there are particular occasions of day after they ‘vanish’.”
The Neomovilidad undertaking was executed by Havana’s Normal Directorate of Transportation, carried out by the United Nations Improvement Program (UNDP) workplace in Cuba and financed by the International Atmosphere Facility (GEF).
Different fleets of ecotaxis present service within the capital’s municipalities of Outdated Havana, Central Havana, Guanabacoa, Playa and Plaza de la Revolución, additionally with UNDP assist. These are all initiatives that contribute to the nationwide dedication to mitigate local weather change.
With routes starting from two to 4 kilometers and low costs, just a little greater than 100 of those autos assist present an answer for sustainable micro-mobility in city areas.
In different Cuban cities, comparable three wheelers with inside combustion engines are in service.
One problem is that the overwhelming majority of ecotaxis and electrical autos rely on the nationwide electrical grid to recharge their batteries. The ecotaxis recharge through the night time at their terminals within the parking a lot of public entities, and privately owned autos accomplish that at their house owners’ properties.
It is because to this point there isn’t a infrastructure that may permit electrical autos to be recharged in a community of service stations.
Round 95 % of Cuba’s electrical energy technology depends on fossil fuels.
The federal government considers it a matter of nationwide safety to remodel the vitality combine, and goals for greater than 30 % of electrical energy to come back from clear energies by 2030, a purpose that might be troublesome to realize because of the want for a excessive degree of funding.
![Passengers try to board an old vehicle operating as a private cab in Havana. In the Cuban capital, around 25 percent of the estimated total number of passengers resort to private cabs with fixed routes, known as almendrones, which are heavy consumers of gasoline or diesel and are not affordable to everyone. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/02/aaa-1.jpg)
New gas costs
A majority of the Cuban inhabitants relies on the general public transportation system, based mostly primarily on buses and different fossil fuel-consuming autos.
In Havana, dwelling to 2.1 million inhabitants, “lower than 300 buses are working, a metropolis that within the Nineteen Eighties had 2,500 buses and solely 4 years in the past had 600,” mentioned Transport Minister Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila throughout a tv look in October 2023.
The best impression falls on these with the bottom buying energy, since buses are essentially the most reasonably priced technique of transportation.
The panorama is comparable in Cuba’s different 14 provinces. Various transport in city, suburban and rural settlements consists of modified vehicles, conventional horse-drawn carriages and bicycle cabs which carry one or two passengers and are pedaled by the driving force.
In Havana, estimates place the whole variety of passengers who use non-public transport at round 25 %, typically in previous U.S.-made vehicles, the so-called “almendrones” – non-public cabs with fastened routes – which run on gasoline or diesel and aren’t reasonably priced for everybody.
Along with the deterioration of the automobile fleet, the power scarcity of spare elements, lubricants and different provides, and the migration of drivers to sectors with higher financial advantages, the gas scarcity has been one of many predominant causes of the irregular public transportation service, which has been accentuated within the final 5 years.
“You may spend an hour ready, or extra. Lots of occasions I am late for sophistication, though I rise up very early. I can not afford a non-public automobile on daily basis. It is more and more troublesome to get anyplace,” confused structure scholar Yenia Hernández in an interview with IPS, as she waited at a bus cease with dozens of different individuals within the Central Havana municipality.
![A train travels along a railroad track in Cuba's capital. A majority of the population depends on the public transportation system, based mainly on buses, trucks and trains, which consume fossil fuels. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS](https://static.globalissues.org/ips/2024/02/aaaa-1.jpg)
Vitality crises have turn out to be extra recurrent since 2019, in parallel with the decline of the home financial scenario and the dearth of international foreign money.
In response to the authorities, this example has a number of causes, from breach of contract by suppliers to U.S. authorities sanctions that hinder entry to credit score and companies from worldwide banks.
In 2021 Cuba imported 126,000 tons of gasoline, in 2022 some 192,000 tons, and in 2023 round 203,000 tons. Regardless of the rise, the determine stays under the demand of about 360,000 tons, Vitality and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy mentioned in a televised assertion on Jan. 8.
Then again, this island nation wants 1.8 billion {dollars} to cowl its annual diesel wants.
“In 2023, 609,000 tons of diesel might be imported, for about 600 million {dollars} (one third),” added the Vitality and Mines Minister.
As of Feb. 1, a rise within the worth of gasoline and diesel was deliberate, with a view to deliver the promoting worth in Cuban pesos consistent with the official price of the greenback, regulate gross sales and promote a portion solely by dollar-backed playing cards, with a view to assure resupply with the international foreign money, based on the federal government.
However the measure was postponed till additional discover as a result of a “cybersecurity incident” attributable to “a virus from overseas” that affected the system of gas gross sales, which is being investigated, official info mentioned.
The technique to eradicate subsidies initiatives, as of Mar. 1, a rise in interprovincial transportation fares, with hikes of just about 3 times the price of bus fares and 6 to seven occasions the price of practice tickets.
Whereas the fares for a part of the general public transport service will stay unchanged, within the case of Havana, the fare for electrical three wheelers will rise from 4 to 10 pesos (0.03 to 0.08 {dollars}).
The will increase in gas costs and transportation fares are along with the bundle of provisions that features tax and tariff modifications as of Jan. 1 and which, based on authorities officers, are geared toward “rectifying distortions” within the economic system and boosting its restoration.
“The one factor I see is that some transportation might be dearer, however there will not essentially be extra autos, or extra trendy autos with higher service,” Reynaldo Martín, {an electrical} engineer dwelling in Outdated Havana, instructed IPS. “Wages stay the identical and meaning I can not even dream of shopping for a bicycle.”
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