BAPDA: Can’t Go Back on Progress, the E-buses Must Stay  

Exactly one month ago, the Belize City Council, the United Nations Development Programme and their partners launched E-buses pilot project, in which two electric buses hit the streets of the Old Capital. The project has been met with mixed reviews, as private city bus owners claim that the buses pose a serious threat to their livelihoods. On the other hand, many citizens maintain that the buses are a step in the right direction that bus operators should have taken years ago. Not only are the buses equipped with wi-fi and A.C., but they are also designed to be accessible to all passengers. We spoke with president of the Belize Assembly for Persons with Diverse Abilities, Kenrick Theus to hear how this project has been received by members of BAPDA.

 

Kenrick Theus, President, B.A.P.D.A.

“We understand the plight of the bus owners as well, but they must also understand that as a country, we need to move forward.  They have had more than one, ten, fifteen, twenty opportunities to fix this. They have done nothing about it. Belize has signed on to different international treaties and stuff, such as the Millennium Development Goals, and this is a part of that, where buses and vehicles and taxis and all that will have to fall in line. And so it’s high time that disabled persons, injured persons, pregnant women can have smooth access onto a bus as opposed to the situation now at the station where they’re actually pushed onto the ground. So anything that falls in line with that and offers a better service than we are for. Here we are one month later working, and they say affecting them negatively. I do not see how it would affect them negatively because if you have your set customers and your customers are loyal to you as they said they were a month ago, then this system should not have been flourishing the way it has. So obviously people are upset overall, not happy with the level of service that they’re getting.  As a disabled person, me in a wheelchair, for example, I cannot access any of these buses here. And even if it is someone in there to help, if let’s say they put a conductor in there to help, to assist me, there aren’t any, nobody’s there to assist you with anything. The driver is he’s bound to his position. He can’t move from there. So he can’t assist you. So finally now we have something that for me works I’m able to take the bus for example at the corner of the street here by my house and the bus takes me all the way right in front of my clinic, my NHI clinic for one dollar Belize one dollar and it’s nothing about the money. It’s about the fact that I have access to it now where I can do it on a bus.”