Bmp. CITCO/Novelo’s strike deal for new service

A new bus service planned for the capital city will hopefully relieve some of the stress associated with getting around. The Belmopan City Council has entered into a six-month lease agreement with the Novelo’s bus company so as to ascertain the demand for internal transit. At the end of that time, the council will then initiate a tender process so that the private sector can start providing the service to Belmopanese and the hundreds of students expected to flood the capital when the University of Belize takes up residence there. According to Mayor Anthony Chanona, the experiment is the result of good working relations between the city and Novelo’s Bus Company.

Anthony Chanona, Belmopan Mayor

“It’s not the ideal bus. Hopefully, we will be able to also evaluate that. You know that Belmopan by design cannot take large equipment on the streets. I think it’s a thirty-five-seater, but this again will be able to guide the tender process, to say look, the type of equipment for the Belmopan City shuttle is going to be this size. But importantly, if we don’t provide a good city bus shuttle, everybody will be buying bicycles, everybody will be buying vehicles and then we’ll have unwanted congestion. So we want to be proactive, plan and hopefully make Belmopan a smooth flowing city.”

“The bus will originate around the bus terminal. We hope to start the bus run from six to nine in the first instance and then from eleven to two and from three till six. After that it will park, because we need to provide some space for the taxi operators. But these are all not properly fleshed out yet, we want to have a meeting with the taxi operators and evaluate a situation where everybody can participate. But the main thing is we want to plan the city’s growth, we want to determine the demand for the service and not wait until the problems visit us. We want to plan ahead of time.”

The new bus run is set to start on August first to coincide with Belmopan Day.