They say they will impose tolls to persuade us to leave our cars at home and use public transportation—buses, trams, subways, and trains—to save the planet.
This is the same planet we failed to save by replacing plastic straws with paper ones. But here’s the catch: we don’t have trains, subways, or trams. We only have buses, and even those come with conditions.
Last week, we saw a woman lying on a sidewalk, waiting for a bus under a bus stop sign, while another sat cross-legged under the meagre shade of a tree. We were told they were just eccentric women. If they weren’t considered eccentric, they would have had to stand under the scorching sun without a seat or shade until they fainted.
Sixty-four years after becoming a state, we still haven’t solved these basic issues. Now, we intend to impose tolls to encourage citizens to opt for buses instead of their private cars. In other countries, this might work because they have well-developed alternatives. They have long distances where you don’t pay tolls to travel from Larnaca to Avgorou or from Nicosia to Kalopanayiotis.
They also have the infrastructure in place so people don’t have to wait standing or lying on the sidewalk under a scorching 44-degree heat for 40 minutes.
Tolls are not just a deterrent to using private cars but also a way to maintain and improve transportation infrastructure, with the funds returned to citizens in the form of better services.
Such a person, a 75-year-old European citizen, accustomed to efficient public transportation in his home country, decided to travel from Pyla to Nicosia and back via Larnaca the other day.
He took a bus from Nicosia around 6 p.m. and arrived at Finikoudes, where he walked and sat for a drink. When he tried to board the bus to Pyla at 9 p.m., he realised he didn’t have the exact change for the fare, and the driver asked him to get off and change his 50-euro note and catch the next bus. The next bus, however, wasn’t until 11 p.m.—a two-hour wait.
He may return to his country, but we will stay here, left with the choice of either paying tolls or bus fares, enduring long waits and walks, or lying on the beach or sidewalk until the next bus arrives, bearing the stigma of being ‘eccentric.’
