www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/buenos-aires-metro-fare-increase
Buenos Aires metro fare jumps 360% amid Argentina’s harsh austerity measures | Argentina
NewsYeah I've been living in Argentina for a year. There's a lot more to this story:
The metro price for the past year has always stayed around 0.10 US$ until now (in which it is 0.50$). It will increase to about 0.65 US$ in August. The article mentions different conversions because there are 2 conversion rates but that's a messed-up story for another time.
The price is still much better than in Brazil where in most cities the fare for metro and buses is around 1 US$.
In February the bus fares (federally controlled by the alt-right party) increased by 300% to their current price of about 0.30$.
With an agreement with the city's centrist government the city agreed to raise the metro fares to "match" the bus fares in April.
This was delayed by one month because the mandatory public hearing could not connect to the internet and so was declared invalid.
Unlike what the article says, this does not affect suburban commuters that much as the commuter trains are still the cheapest part of the public transport system starting at 0.20$ fares.
The metro...is bad, kind of. The headways are about 4 min but I got delayed yesterday by 15min when a train almost got stuck in the tunnel, and a few weeks ago a train did get stuck in the tunnel and people had to climb out and walk through the tunnel. No extension projects or new engines either, it's actually a very small network for a city of its size (57 km for 13 million people). The only thing I will miss about it is having free wifi for many of the tracks.
I agree with your comment, except for the network part. Yes, it’s a short network for a city its size (3M inhabitants) but keep in mind that Greater Buenos Aires (14M inhabitants) has a huge electric commuter trains network (+200 km) unlike other Latin American cities that built their metro system from scratch more recently and have a larger network (but almost unexistent commuter trains).
The system needs to improve so the subte (metro) has a better integration with the commuter trains network. Obviously a larger network should be built, but considering the large commuter train network it doesn’t need to be a lot larger.
Buenos Aires has a good commuter rail system but it is not a replacement for metro. Moving from suburb to suburb radially always requires buses for example. Which means waiting for who knows how long in the suburbs. There are no bus schedules. It's no wonder that the suburbs are full of people with cars.
Yeah, I agree with you. The bus network is pretty big and efficient, though. I’ve read it’s the largest in Latin America.
The city needs to double its subway network and enhance commuter trains (more frequencies) so they work more like the metro