Representatives of social movements from 12 states are in Brasilia this week to denounce the situation of the public transport system and defend the expansion of zero fare throughout the country. The free transport model is adopted in full in 136 municipalities, most of them small and medium. In some capitals, such as Brasilia and Sao Paulo, gratuity occurs only on Sundays and holidays.
The zero fare caravan, from 6 to 10 October, is a national action articulated by popular movements, road and subway unions, urban collectives and political parties that call for structural solutions to the crisis in public transport.
“There is a terminal crisis in the current public transport system, especially in the financing and management model,” says Paíque Dukes Santarém, from the Free Pass Movement (MPL) and researcher at the Metropolis Observatory.
THE Caravan Programming It includes public classes, leaflets, plenary sessions with movements from the Federal District, exhibition of a documentary, public hearing in the House of Representatives and a meeting at the Secretariat of Institutional Relations of the Presidency of the Republic (SRI). The theme of Zero fare has been gaining strength in recent weeks and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva He even asked for a broad study on the subject For Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.
“Our interest, with this caravan, is precisely to build a permanent voice space of social movements to guarantee this right,” says Paíque.
Resistance
Despite the unprecedented expansion of zero fare in the country, its expansion is resistance, especially in large cities. Last week, for example, the Belo Horizonte City Council rejected a proposal to implement total gratuity in the city’s public transport, with implementation forecast in up to four years.
The project provided for the creation of a Public Transport Rate (TTP), which would be charged with employers with ten employees or more, and raising funds also through bus advertising and terminals, fines applied to dealers and the creation of a municipal fund to fund the new system.
“In Brazil, public transport management is municipalized and carried out basically by private companies. We understand that we need to create national entities and reorganize public transport as an essential social right,” says Paíque.
Last year, a published research From the National Confederation of Transport (CNT) pointed out that 86.7% of the population is favorable to public financing of transport, 60% support the universal zero tariff and 21.8% defend free pass to specific groups.
In the evaluation of the MPL, the sector crisis is aggravated because the exploratory model of urban, based on profit, is further overloading the whole of workers, who directly suffer the effects of this cost reduction promoted by companies.
“The working class has lower salaries, growing in informality and sick by precarious journeys. This scenario has generated a 41% reduction in the number of passengers in recent decades. In addition to increasing tariffs, companies have worsened the services: cut lines, increased the discomfort, reduced maintenance. in a public letter disclosed to boost the mobilization in Brasilia.
