In spite of being deficit-ridden and held up by government
subsidies, the OMSA (Organizaci?n Metropolitana de Servicios de Autobuses) bus
service provider has announced that starting next Sunday, 7 September, the buses
in Santiago and Santo Domingo will carry passengers for free on Sundays. El
Caribe says that this will cost OMSA about RD$1 million a week. Concurrently,
the paper reports that OMSA users complain that there are frequent lapses in
service due to fuel shortages, local flooding, and other problems. The OMSA debt
is said to be RD$189 million, in spite of the fact that just last week it
received a RD$60-million subsidy from the government. Even with the government
assistance, the total debt did not decrease. The difference between income and
expenditures is RD$70 million a month. According to Gladyori A. Rodr?guez, the
El Caribe reporter, many of OMSA?s customers cannot afford the RD$10 fare for
the express buses that were recently put into service. The reporter revealed
that the larger buses cannot negotiate large puddles from rains because the
motors become flooded. According to the report, the OMSA is a bottomless pit.
Nevertheless, there are studies that indicate that the demand for public
transportation amounts to nearly three million passengers a day while OMSA is
transporting only 400,000 per day. Even so, this is three times the total that
was carried just 20 years ago. Engineer Atilio Fr?as, a transport specialist,
explained that transportation is too tied into politics and transport unions are
too powerful. Fr?as says under its present cost structure, OMSA would need to
charge RD$15 per fare. Fr?as and Hamlet Hermann, who oversaw the Metropolitan
Transport Authority in its first years, say there is a need to unify transport
matters.