Bogotá: The expensive color change of SITP buses – Bogotá

In a courtyard in the southwest of Bogotá, there have been 371 new buses of the Integrated Public Transport System (SITP) for several months. These are electric vehicles that have not come into operation and that, at the request of the Mayor’s Office, must be painted green.

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These automobiles arrived in the country imported from China with the traditional blue color with which the zonal system has been identified since it began to operate in the city. They are expected to soon be joined by another 91, which are already in Colombia, and still others using Euro VI technology gas. A total of 583 would be those that would be changed, in principle, to green.

A source told this newspaper that the SITP buses arrive blue because that is how the system has been identified and that is why the operators ask for them in that color when purchasing them abroad. That was what happened in the case of the electric fleet, which would be in a workshop yard in the San Martín refrigerator area.

Changing the color of each bus, according to a source close to an operator, costs about 9 million pesos. That means that painting that new fleet of electric buses and Euro VI would cost approximately 5,300 million pesos. These vehicles would be from the consortium made up of Grupo Expres and Somos K, which will not assume the cost of the transformation.

Another source told this newspaper that it is expected that the first electric vehicles will begin to be brought to the Marco Polo plant, located on the Siberia-Cota road, where they will be painted again. In fact, there they are making adjustments and receiving personnel to begin that work.

Felipe Ramírez, manager of the TransMilenio company, confirmed to EL TIEMPO that the fleet of electric and gas Euro VI buses will be changed and assured that this cost will not be borne by the city, but by the company Enel-Codensa, in principle . It should be remembered that the District is a partner of this company.

“The color change will not be done in any of the buses that are already running. And that is very important because it does not have any additional cost associated with it. It is about new buses that are going to enter, the electric ones and Euro VI”, explained Ramírez .

The idea, according to the official, is that the electric buses that are tendered arrive in the city with the color green and not blue.

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Former mayor Enrique Peñalosa entered this debate this morning, who in a tweet said that “The mayor has spent a lot of time painting the electric blue buses that we buy green to see if she appropriates something from them. Show”.

The decision to change from blue to green would have been made a few months ago, however, it has not been made because of the cost it represented to the city. For this reason, as it transpired, the Mayor’s Office looked for a company to sponsor the image change.

Faced with this decision, councilor Lucía Bastidas (Alianza Verde Party, the same as the mayor) yesterday sent a right to petition to the manager of TransMilenio, Felipe Ramírez, in which he asked to “inform if you plan to change the color” of the Euro VI technology gas buses and the new electric buses.

It even asks for information about the color with which those cars arrived in the country, the cost that this change would have, if those values ​​will be assumed by the District or the operators and the “technical and legal reasons for modifying the color of the buses.” .

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“I disagree. There is a corporate image and each system has its identity, which in the case of the zones is blue, “said Bastidas, who added:” The change will cost millionaire resources that can be used on social issues, such as employment, and not for whim. Neither gifted nor loaned these resources should be used to change the color of buses ”.

The councilor believes that with the color green the mayor wants to “put the stamp of her political party (Green), that does not make any sense.”

On the same subject, Councilor Jorge Colmenares (Democratic Center) expressed his concern, who told eltiempo.com that it is an “unnecessary” expense that is not justified in the current situation, and assured: “I hope it is not to encourage the mayoress party. Supposedly due to austerity she said that she was not going to change the Administration’s logo and that is why she left the institutional one ”.

“The Mayor’s Office has to explain why and why the color is changed, and what will make a difference,” insisted Colmenares.

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However, the TransMilenio manager says that the explanation for the color change is none other than “the city begins to see the change in this fleet that is helping the environment and begins to see that there is indeed an important change for the bogotanos “.

Ramírez also says that what green means is an environmental issue and that the color change “is done in line with and agreed with the operators, if it were not like that, it could not be done.”

The manager also clarifies that the entire process of adapting the new SITP buses “is within the schedule.”

In that change of image, the new fleet of Euro VI gas buses would not be present, of which 48 are expected to start operating next Tuesday in the town of Ciudad Bolívar.

In the middle of this debate, it was learned that some operators have expressed their concern that Transmilenio has not ordered that they begin to test the vehicles and install the necessary equipment, such as turnstiles and cameras, so that they can go out to provide the transport service in the city. These buses also require chargers to be installed in special yards.

In fact, as EL TIEMPO denounced at the beginning of last March, in a warehouse in the industrial zone of Puente Aranda, new equipment that was imported several years ago is still stored to be used by zone buses that have not been able to enter into operation.

GUILLERMO REINOSO RODRÍGUEZ
Bogota Editor
@ guirei24
[email protected]