Refurbished bus terminal in Belmopan doubled in size

And we turn now to transport. If you’ve traveled cross-country recently you will have noticed that the dilapidated bus terminal near the Belmopan market square has received some much-needed attention. Yesterday the Transport Department held an official opening for the refurbished bus terminal, which is now almost double its initial size. Chief Transport Officer, Candelaria Saldivar, told News Five today that while the operational side of the industry still needs improvement, the recent significant infrastructural improvements was the first step towards upgrading the system.

Candelaria Saldivar, Chief Transport Officer
“What we did inside the terminals is that we’ve separated the passengers in the waiting area; we have the east-bound, the south-bound then we have the west-bound. We have also opened the gates. We’ve moved the exit area cause some people we complaining that they had to go all the way around the terminal in order to use the bathroom so we’ve moved the exit are so that now you could exit and access the bathroom easily. We’re also included some ticket booths. We haven’t opened them as yet but the plan is in the future that we could use the ticket booths once we’ve completed the Belize City terminal ticket booths. Then passengers would be able to buy tickets to go on their destination. We included also inside the terminal some stalls; I think about six stalls. As you’ve been noticing, some of the vendors have been complaining that they don’t have access to the customers because they‘re not allowed within the area where the busses park. So we put in six stalls for the vendors so that they can go in now access the inside of the terminal and sell their stuff from inside the terminal.”

Marion Ali
“All this sounds good, but in terms of the transportation system, people are still complaining of overcrowded buses on the highway, buses not reaching their destinations on time, not stopping because of overcrowding or late, not stopping for certain passengers, how are you addressing all of this to bring everything up to par?”

Candelaria Saldivar
“Okay, what happened this is only one part of the improvement that we want for the transportation industry. We’re hoping that with the ticket booths, then the bus company as well as the terminal management will be able to determine the amount of buses necessary for a particular route. This should improve in the amount of buses made available to passengers which should reduce the amount of standees and the time wait for transportation. We have been in consultation with the bus owners insisting that the policy is that we need to put on some more buses. We have some problems with them but we’re working it out through the Transport Board and through consultations with the bus company.”

Marion Ali
“How soon should these basic problems be remedied?”

Candelaria Saldivar
“We’re hoping that this will be remedied within the next month or so. But we have had some improvement, we have had some buses like we have G Line which brings two buses from the south. That was one of the areas that we had complaints about. So in the morning now you find that we have two buses coming from the G Line. We have put in an extra bus for James, five and five-thirty, when before it was only at five o’clock. So we have been having some changes as we go along but there are still some difficulties but we have to work it through with the bus operators.”

Saldivar says the facelift cost around two hundred thousand dollars.