HAVANA, Feb 05 (IPS) – Jorge Sarmientos stated he made a very good funding when he purchased an electrical motorbike to get round and keep away from the anxiousness 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, informed 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 gasoline. Costs needs to be lowered or there needs to be amenities for extra folks to accumulate electrical automobiles.”
Official knowledge point out that half one million electrical bikes are on the roads on this Caribbean island nation of 11 million inhabitants, a type of transportation that helps folks and households get round.
During the last decade, using electrical automobiles has elevated in Cuba, primarily based on customs authorizations for his or her importation.
Extra lately, the home trade has begun to assemble completely different fashions, together with electrical bicycles and three-wheelers, utilizing elements imported largely from China.
However the truth that they’re primarily bought in overseas forex 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 common month-to-month wage is equal to about 35 {dollars} in response to the official trade fee, or about 16 {dollars} within the casual market.
In accordance with studies, virtually 40 hybrid buses (alternating diesel and electrical energy) have been added to Havana’s deteriorated fleet of public buses lately, a expertise that saves 25 to 30 p.c of gasoline and is much less polluting.
However the extreme inside financial disaster and the scarcity of overseas forex are hindering actions to extend the variety of one hundred pc electrical automobiles with the intention to steadily decarbonize public transportation.
Some firms and establishments have acquired electrical vehicles, which carry reductions in upkeep prices.
Native options
Within the case of Havana, from 2019 to 2023 the Neomovilidad undertaking was carried out, which amongst its aims aimed to strengthen the regulatory framework for an environment friendly transition to a low-emission city transportation system.
Along with prioritizing variables comparable to a gender method and the inclusion of various age teams, the undertaking offered a pilot public bicycle rental station, run by an area improvement undertaking led by younger folks.
It additionally created three routes of three-wheeled electrical ecotaxis pushed primarily by girls in outlying neighborhoods of Boyeros, one of many 15 municipalities that make up Havana.
The three-wheelers are gentle, motorized automobiles with a capability for six passengers within the again, just like the autorickshaws or tuktuks which are widespread in Asia. Right here they’re additionally referred to as motocarros or mototaxis.
“I feel they’re an ideal possibility for getting round shortly over brief distances, and at inexpensive costs,” retiree Gloria Almaguer, a resident of the Fontanar neighborhood in Boyeros, informed IPS. “The unhealthy factor is that there should not sufficient to cowl demand, they’ll carry only some folks, and there are particular instances of day after they ‘vanish’.”
The Neomovilidad undertaking was executed by Havana’s Basic Directorate of Transportation, carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) workplace in Cuba and financed by the Global Environment 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, a bit greater than 100 of those automobiles 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 automobiles rely upon the nationwide electrical grid to recharge their batteries. The ecotaxis recharge through the night time at their terminals within the parking a number of public entities, and privately owned automobiles achieve this at their homeowners’ properties.
It is because to this point there isn’t a infrastructure that will permit electrical automobiles to be recharged in a community of service stations.
Round 95 p.c of Cuba’s electrical energy technology depends on fossil fuels.
The federal government considers it a matter of nationwide safety to rework the power combine, and goals for greater than 30 p.c of electrical energy to return from clear energies by 2030, a purpose that can be tough to realize as a result of want for a excessive degree of funding.
New gasoline costs
A majority of the Cuban inhabitants relies on the general public transportation system, primarily based primarily on buses and different fossil fuel-consuming automobiles.
In Havana, dwelling to 2.1 million inhabitants, “lower than 300 buses are working, a metropolis that within the Eighties had 2,500 buses and solely 4 years in the past had 600,” stated Transport Minister Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila throughout a tv look in October 2023.
The best affect falls on these with the bottom buying energy, since buses are probably the most inexpensive technique of transportation.
The panorama is comparable in Cuba’s different 14 provinces. Different transport in city, suburban and rural settlements contains modified vans, 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 overall variety of passengers who use non-public transport at round 25 p.c, typically in previous U.S.-made vehicles, the so-called “almendrones” – non-public cabs with mounted routes – which run on gasoline or diesel and should not inexpensive for everybody.
Along with the deterioration of the car fleet, the persistent scarcity of spare elements, lubricants and different provides, and the migration of drivers to sectors with larger financial advantages, the gasoline scarcity has been one of many major causes of the irregular public transportation service, which has been accentuated within the final 5 years.
“You possibly can spend an hour ready, or extra. Loads of instances I am late for sophistication, despite the fact that I rise up very early. I can not afford a personal automobile every single day. It is more and more tough to get anyplace,” burdened structure scholar Yenia Hernández in an interview with IPS, as she waited at a bus cease with dozens of different folks within the Central Havana municipality.
Vitality crises have change into extra recurrent since 2019, in parallel with the decline of the home financial state of affairs and the dearth of overseas forex.
In accordance with 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 beneath the demand of about 360,000 tons, Vitality and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy stated in a televised assertion on Jan. 8.
However, 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 the intention to carry the promoting worth in Cuban pesos in step with the official fee of the greenback, regulate gross sales and promote a portion solely by way of dollar-backed playing cards, with the intention to assure resupply with the overseas forex, in response to the federal government.
However the measure was postponed till additional discover as a result of a “cybersecurity incident” brought on by “a virus from overseas” that affected the system of gasoline gross sales, which is being investigated, official data stated.
The technique to eradicate subsidies initiatives, as of Mar. 1, a rise in interprovincial transportation fares, with hikes of just about thrice the price of bus fares and 6 to seven instances 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 gasoline costs and transportation fares are along with the package deal of provisions that features tax and tariff modifications as of Jan. 1 and which, in response to authorities officers, are aimed toward “rectifying distortions” within the economic system and boosting its restoration.
“The one factor I see is that some transportation can be dearer, however there will not essentially be extra automobiles, or extra trendy automobiles with higher service,” Reynaldo Martín, {an electrical} engineer dwelling in Outdated Havana, informed IPS. “Wages stay the identical and which means I can not even dream of shopping for a bicycle.”
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
