City bus woes

By MARTIN LIRI
WE are at the Boroko bus terminal trying to head to Gerehu. Willie Stevens, a good friend whom I had got to know many years back during my days as a salesman at The National newspaper and me are having a yarn. Willie is a talented graphic designer, whose employers at the time were clients I did business with in my line of work.
Our subject was different today. It is related to sports, something we are equally passionate about.
He had just returned two days earlier from a short sports trip to the Gold Coast. As a keen lawn bowls administrator he is sharing his experience of the tour with great enthusiasm. My missus Barbara joins us as we wait for a bus No 9 that usually services the Boroko-Gerehu route.
It is a Thursday afternoon. It is past 5pm and slowly our discussion shifts from sports to one littered with impatience, frustration and anger and other unpublishable superlatives about Port Moresby’s public transport “system”. The word has taken a new meaning for many city commuters.
It doesn’t matter how collected and composed one’s ability to control their emotions are, what has become a daily practice in the city can ‘set one off the rails’.
I am a regular commuter who relies on the Public Motor Vehicles (PMVs), the privately owned transport “system” that services the capital city of Papua New Guinea so I would like to think that I have mastered it by not letting my emotions get the better of me. Containing one’s emotions when it comes to trying to catch a PMV is an art form.
I understand how Willie, also a regular commuter, is feeling after returning home from Australia. I felt the same way when I returned from a trip to the Philippines. It is less stressful using those countries’ public transport system. Port Moresby has a population that is only a minute fraction to that of those cities, but the glaring difference is that their public transport is much better organised and their authorities are quick to pounce on anyone trying to cheat the system.
A way with words Willie offers a quote that despite the seriousness of the situation forces me to laugh.
“This is chaos, no… organised chaos, I should say,” Willie mutters.
What is drawing his ire is seemingly trivial, unless of course, one is exposed to it on a daily basis.
There are about five buses numbered 11, which are supposed to service the Konedobu-to-Morata route. They are all empty, waiting to be filled up before they proceed on their journey. Don’t ask me what they had done with the commuters they had ferried from town because that will end up being a long winded chapter.
Our wait is now pushing over the 30 minute mark. In fact, it is ticking towards one hour because the majority of No 9 buses have devised a scheme.
They are only catering for passengers getting off at Waigani.
They are charging K1 per person. Their rationale is quite obvious – why go all the way to Gerehu for the same rate of K1? Other empty ones glide past knowing that somewhere along the way some hapless passengers will hop on only to find out that they will have to pay K1 and get off a couple of kilometres away at Waigani.
There is a set standard on PMV fares as imposed by the ICCC while the Land Transport Board is in charge of handing out permits for buses to operate and making sure they stick to their designated routes. Today, these regulations are all failing miserably and literally are out the window. Commuters with anything less than K1 are being forced off public transport. There is no trying to argue that the total route from Gerehu to town –on Bus 9- should only cost K1.
Passengers are now at the mercy of the bus operators who, in their defence, have been pre-programmed to quote high operational costs. Prod them more on the subject and you’ll find that they quite don’t know what operational costs are.
It starts getting late, moving towards 6pm. Buses who are keen return to Boroko and start picking up passengers bound for Gerehu. A commuter desperate to make it to Gerehu during this rush hour has to fork out K2 in total – K1 to Waigani which has now become a transit point. From there, you can catch the Gordons bus – No 7- or Gerehu –No 9.
Willie, like me, knows exactly what will happen at the central Gerehu bus-stop the next day after the early morning peak hour has passed. These same buses are lined up with their “bos crew” – the man who collects the fares, physically outside the vehicle trying to convince passengers to get on on-board.
On another day in order to attend a 1pm meeting at Konebodu, I had to pay K1 to Boroko, K1 to Ela Beach and another K1 to Waterfront. If the meeting had been in the morning I would have paid K2 to get to the venue by taking a bus direct from Gerehu to Konedobu – this service stops after the morning rush and resumes after 4pm when work has stopped for most commuters.
My return leg is not within this time frame so I would have to fork out K3 – K6 in total to do the round-trip.
Commuters using the other routes have similar stories but are among the silent majority who just accept it as a problem that they would have to endure as a way of life.
Willie launches into a tirade about why the authorities responsible for the transport “system” don’t seem to care.
Maybe they do but by not addressing the problem, it can be likened to a sore that when not treated quickly can develop into an ulcer.
The travelling public, many of them public servants and from the workers from the private sector, are among the silent tax-paying population. They need to be spared of this stressful daily practice of the city’s chaotic transport system through appropriate intervention from relevant authorities.

• The writer is a freelance journalist.