Apparently, a few years ago Santiago consolidated its transit system to allow for a single payment system across local and regional buses and the Metro. The result is a pretty efficient system. The local buses are color-coded based on the area that they serve and are typically much smaller that the regional buses and much older. Our area has mostly orange buses but some yellow ones are on the fringe. On Tuesday, when Elisa and I went to a different area of town I was a bit at a loss because the small buses were blue! The regional buses usually go across the city and are much larger. They often have the accordion middle and the kids keep waiting to see them fold in half. In just three weeks, I feel pretty comfortable navigating the bus/metro system which is quite intuitive but then again I really like maps and transit systems. There are signs on the front of each bus that indicate its route based on major streets and metro stops. They come pretty frequently and are jammed-packed during rush hour. One nice benefit is that about a third of the time, especially on the local buses, you can be serenaded by local musicians (or tempted by a guy selling candy).
Lastly, there are school buses that probably hold 15 kids or so. They seem to be mostly for grade school kids as we have seen high school kids on the city buses. These buses are all private and you need to hire them based on your school and your neighborhood. We were given three names of drivers that come through our neighborhood for Instituto Hebreo but since I am not working full time and there is no Nana to greet the kids I just plan to drop off and pick up the kids. It is actually about $400/month for three kids which sounds like a lot - perhaps that is one of the reasons why the South Bend Community School Corporation is having a hard time balancing the budget!
No comments:
Post a Comment