Haven't Car, Won't Travel
Imagine you live in Rianxo and have found an ad for your dream job in Pontevedra. Since you don't have a car, you prevail upon a friend to drive you down to the interview. It goes beautifully and you get the job. You are convinced that with a little time juggle you can catch a bus or two down to Pontevedra every day. You check the schedules.
To begin, there is no bus from Rianxo to Pontevedra. You must take the bus that passes through Padron, where you will change to the one that goes down to Pontevedra. Ah, but the times. Do they coincide? You check. The first bus that stops in Padron leaves Rianxo at 7:15. It arrives in Padron at 7:50, giving you over an hour and a half to wait for the 9:30, that arrives in Pontevedra at 10:30. There's only one little problem. Your dream job begins at 9:00 every morning. You call them up and decline the job. You would be spending most of your salary on cabs.
That's the general truth in Galicia. Usually, buses are localized. The nearest large city is on a bus route that passes through your village or town, but to get to the town after that, you have to change buses somewhere, if there are any. My daughter, who has still not gotten her license (at this rate she'll get it when she's thirty), has been trying to find affordable public transport to the city of Ferrol to go to a concert with a friend who lives there. The first leg is easy, from here to Santiago. The problem is from Santiago, because nothing seems to connect cheaply and comfortably with Ferrol. Now my daughter understands why so many of her classmates that come from other parts of Galicia sometimes spend months without going home on a weekend. It's not that Santiago is half the world away from their homes, it's that they have no cheap and frequent transport.
Sometimes a bus route is also local knowledge kept very hush-hush. I have been trying on the internet to find different bus routes between different towns and cities that are not far from each other. It's almost impossible. Yet, if I were to approach a bus station physically and ask about different routes, I would probably be shown quite a few. It's like the bus stops. My daughter had classmates from AndalucÃa this past year on an exchange program with the Universidad de Granada. They tried to visit different towns by bus. They were amazed that the bus stops were not signposted in any way. The locals simply know where to stand and wait, and the driver where to pick up passengers. Outsiders get lost if they don't ask.
Train service is much the same. Erratic like a thunderstorm on a May afternoon. You think it'll pass over you, but it doesn't. To get to Tui on the border with Portugal, from here, think it twice. By car it's about an hour. By train it's almost four hours, and with a change of trains at Vigo. And then you have to spend the night in Tui because the only train back to Vigo is in the morning. In many small towns the train doesn't stop anymore. The reason usually given is there are fewer people taking the train. But if people are given less choices in transport, how will more people return to taking the train? Cutting costs has become the mantra of public transport, which will eventually end in its demise.
When politicians and public officials urge the public to leave the car at home and use public transportation, people simply ignore them and keep taking the car into town like they always have. Then the pollution on clear days in Madrid and Barcelona reach levels worthy of Chinese cities. And Spaniards have become car owners almost on a par with the Americans, sometimes with three cars or more to a household. It's either that or staying at home.
To begin, there is no bus from Rianxo to Pontevedra. You must take the bus that passes through Padron, where you will change to the one that goes down to Pontevedra. Ah, but the times. Do they coincide? You check. The first bus that stops in Padron leaves Rianxo at 7:15. It arrives in Padron at 7:50, giving you over an hour and a half to wait for the 9:30, that arrives in Pontevedra at 10:30. There's only one little problem. Your dream job begins at 9:00 every morning. You call them up and decline the job. You would be spending most of your salary on cabs.
That's the general truth in Galicia. Usually, buses are localized. The nearest large city is on a bus route that passes through your village or town, but to get to the town after that, you have to change buses somewhere, if there are any. My daughter, who has still not gotten her license (at this rate she'll get it when she's thirty), has been trying to find affordable public transport to the city of Ferrol to go to a concert with a friend who lives there. The first leg is easy, from here to Santiago. The problem is from Santiago, because nothing seems to connect cheaply and comfortably with Ferrol. Now my daughter understands why so many of her classmates that come from other parts of Galicia sometimes spend months without going home on a weekend. It's not that Santiago is half the world away from their homes, it's that they have no cheap and frequent transport.
Sometimes a bus route is also local knowledge kept very hush-hush. I have been trying on the internet to find different bus routes between different towns and cities that are not far from each other. It's almost impossible. Yet, if I were to approach a bus station physically and ask about different routes, I would probably be shown quite a few. It's like the bus stops. My daughter had classmates from AndalucÃa this past year on an exchange program with the Universidad de Granada. They tried to visit different towns by bus. They were amazed that the bus stops were not signposted in any way. The locals simply know where to stand and wait, and the driver where to pick up passengers. Outsiders get lost if they don't ask.
Train service is much the same. Erratic like a thunderstorm on a May afternoon. You think it'll pass over you, but it doesn't. To get to Tui on the border with Portugal, from here, think it twice. By car it's about an hour. By train it's almost four hours, and with a change of trains at Vigo. And then you have to spend the night in Tui because the only train back to Vigo is in the morning. In many small towns the train doesn't stop anymore. The reason usually given is there are fewer people taking the train. But if people are given less choices in transport, how will more people return to taking the train? Cutting costs has become the mantra of public transport, which will eventually end in its demise.
When politicians and public officials urge the public to leave the car at home and use public transportation, people simply ignore them and keep taking the car into town like they always have. Then the pollution on clear days in Madrid and Barcelona reach levels worthy of Chinese cities. And Spaniards have become car owners almost on a par with the Americans, sometimes with three cars or more to a household. It's either that or staying at home.
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