The public transport rate will not change next year. It was announced on Friday by the ‘minister’ of Polítiques Digitals i Teritori, Jordi Puigneró, through a tweet, after the mayor Ada Colau request the freezing In an interview. Without a doubt, a good news for bus, metro and tram users (the taxi will rise, about 2.8%), but if you broaden the focus and look back, it turns out that the party has been paying for decades, with successive uploads in the last 15 years (to take a round section) that in many cases are well above the accumulated CPI. An aperitif: the T-10 was worth 6.65 euros in 2006, while now the T-Casual, the natural substitute is at 11.35 euros, 70.67% more for an increase in the cost of living of 33.2% in the province of Barcelona. I mean, more than double. The situation is very different for regular users who bet on the T-Usual, a title that would be equivalent to the old T-Mes and which is now cheaper than in 2006.
At a time when circulation in private vehicle has recovered much faster than the confidence in public transport, raising fares was not a viable option from any point of view. Neither social, nor political, nor environmental. The bus is 83% of the 2019 operational and the subway slightly exceeds 81%, while the car only moves 5% less than before the pandemic. The downturn in public transport is less at peak times, but it shoots up the rest of the day, which indicates that the regular traveler has returned much more than the occasional one, who perhaps, due to ignorance, does not trust. To this must be added the fact that in October the limits established by the European Union in terms of nitrogen dioxide emissions (No2).
Without forgetting, obviously, the crisis generated by covid. Before this postcard, the Metropolitan Transport Authority, represented 51% by the Government and 49% by local entities, had no other option but to maintain the fixed price photo for the second consecutive year. All this, we must not forget it, with a public funding effort very uneven, with the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council taking out the checkbook and the Government providing the paycheck, since there is still no state law on public transport financing (Catalonia does have its own legislation), although it seems that this will be resolved soon with the new sustainable mobility law, already in process. And with a very wide palette of free or discounted titles for children under 16 years of age, elderly people, large or single-parent families, unemployed travelers or for those drivers who have disposed of their car with the start-up of the low emission zone.
Aggravated crisis
Everything that is not covered by the Administration has ended up being assumed by the user, who pays about 50% of the ticket. In the last 15 years there have been various freezes, but the detail shows increases much higher than the accumulated CPI, which in the case of the province of Barcelona is 33.2% while the global one for Catalonia is 32.4%. Apart from the rise of 70.67% in the T-Casual cost (one-person pass valid for 10 trips), the single ticket has gone from 1.20 to 2.40 euros, that is, double, and the T-50/30 it went from 27.55 to 43.50 in 2019, 58% more. The titles that have been shot are those that are intended for the occasional user of public transport. The T-Usual, that premiered in 2020, and that allows unlimited travel for 30 days, has a lower price than the T-My 15 years before. Now it costs 40 euros and in 2006 it amounted to 42.75 euros. In its last current year (2019), however, this card cost 54 euros, 26.3% more but six percentage points less than the accumulated IPC of this entire period.
During the years of galloping crisis, between 2010 and 2013, with a Government that scratched money from under the stones, and despite the fact that logic invited to think about a rate freeze so as not to aggravate the precarious situation of many families, the most common transport tickets soared. The T-10 went from 7.85 to 9.80 euros (+ 25%) and the single ticket, from 1.40 to 2 euros (+ 43%). Minor was the rise in the T-Month, which went from 48.85 to 52.75 euros, an increase of 8%. The CPI increase in the province of Barcelona it was 10.8% in those three unfortunate years.
Apart from the new transport tickets, which in 2020 represented a reduction for regular users, the only time that could be celebrate a price reduction of a transport ticket occurred between 2014 and 2015. The T-10 fare went from 10.30 to 9.95 euros, a 3% reduction which was, for not giving tips without political thread, a imposition of the PSC to then Mayor Xavier Trias to approve the municipal budget. However, it was still a 38% higher disbursement than in the pre-crisis times. Something much more extraordinary was the decision, in April 2020, and in the hardest moments of the confinement, to lower subway and bus barriers so that they were free for the essential services professionals They kept working to make everything a little less crude. Quite a gesture that would hardly have occurred in a private operator.
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Constant improvements
Apart from the straits and the lack of funding, the increase in fares is also explained by the constant and necessary improvements in public transport. This includes the growth of the metro or bus network. The most recent, the opening of three stations on the south branch of the L10, or the launch of the Barcelona’s first express bus line, the X1 that connects Francesc Macià with Glòries with a commercial speed much higher than that of the rest of the buses. The average is 12 km / h and this reaches 17. There is also the fleet renewal and the commitment to electrify vehicles in detriment to diesel. Without forgetting the tram connection that will begin to come true next year after more than 10 years of political noise or the promise to finish the central section of line 9 before the end of the decade. None of that pays for itself. And they are improvements that one appreciates when traveling to other large cities and realizes, for example, that the Catalan capital is one of the cities with more metro stations adapted for people with functional diversity (more than 90%).
Reference-www.elperiodico.com