The remodeled Havana Bus Terminal surprised travelers with the implementation of new rules. As of this Saturday, relatives of users were prohibited from entering and a long-standing custom was broken in which they used to lead them to the transport truck and help them with their luggage.
The people crowding the terminal access door saw their way blocked by a female employee. “It can’t happen,” he would say bluntly to a young man who was carrying his grandfather’s suitcase, who would be traveling alone that morning.
The arguments of a disgruntled young man were useless. “I don’t understand why I can’t come in, I have to help my grandfather with his suitcase, he’s old and he gets nervous.” While the employee stopped: “That is what we are here for, to help you, only the person who is going to travel can come to the terminal.” And he called another employee who came with a cart to load the luggage of the man who was waiting with a scared face at the door.
Other people who were in the same situation began to crowd, as if it were a queue, while the employee reiterated that as of this Saturday “only those who have the ticket have to pass.” Those are the rules now”. The scene was repeated and called again and again to the trunk that seemed to be unable to cope. The measure far from streamlining the service caused delays.
As of this Saturday, the access to relatives of users was prohibited
“Every time they invent something, it is to make everything more difficult,” lamented a lady who had arrived late and was impatient in the line that formed to enter the terminal. “It was not enough for them to make the terminal so ugly, now you can only enter and exit in one place, this looks like a prison,” he continued.
The place underwent a remodeling during the first wave of the covid, in which they removed the internal divisions of the structure and put other small ones that seem to have the function of controlling the flow of people and that break with all the aesthetics of the premises.
They have also removed the glass in the “fishbowl”, as the waiting room where travelers gathered before going to the platform to board the bus was popularly known. Now it is also an open place.
“These changes were made out of necessity, to be able to remove the air conditioning, as it was always broken and there are no spare parts for such old equipment or a budget to buy new ones” explained an employee to 14ymedio.
Another change is that now the area where the luggage is collected is checked. Something that is not clear whether or not it helps to streamline the entire process, since it adds another procedure where historically to deliver the packages a large line is formed that almost reaches the entrance.
“Every time they invent something, it is to make everything more difficult,” lamented a lady who had arrived late.
The bus station that stopped its operations during 2020 and 2021 due to the suspension of trips and restrictive measures, resumed operations this November 1 for the second time since the start of the pandemic.
Users do not understand the new rule change to access the premises, when this Saturday the regime called a march to overshadow the first anniversary of the 27N mobilizations, when more than three hundred intellectuals, artists and journalists made public their demands to achieve an inclusive, democratic, sovereign, prosperous, equitable and transnational country.
This Saturday university students, the Armed Forces, as well as representatives of the communist youth of Havana, as published Granma, they marched in “homage to the eight Cubans killed by the Spanish tyranny.”
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