In Costa Rica there will never be a Metro, nor an urban electric train, nor any type of efficient public transport system simply because it does not suit the bus companies.

EDITORIAL

Lack of strong political leadership and a government with real capabilities is preventing Costa Rica from making the indispensable  -and also inevitable- changes needed for it to regain its position as a leading nation in terms of economic and social development in Central America.

In the absence of such leadership, the forces that prevail in Costa Rican society -those which really govern- are the groups sheltering behind virtually impregnable walls of privileges, walls built using thousands of abusive standards as bricks, and the now distorted concept of “acquired rights” as mortar.

The result is a continued loss of competitiveness for the Costa Rican economy, in that the necessary evolution of the modes of production and the interrelation of productive resources is not materialising, as it is in all other countries making progress.

As noted an editorial on Nacion.com, for 20 years attempts have been made to modernize the public transport system in the metropolitan area of Costa Rica, without any of the five governments involved having been able to make this modernization happen, having always yielded under pressure from the owners of bus companies.

And it is not only the zoning plan – which the current administration threw away by means of tortuous change over of the staff responsible for this issue- which is not acceptable to the interests of bus companies. Nor will there be an urban electric train, a subway, or any other project that threatens their well developed interests, which are currently totally against those of the ordinary people and the country’s development.

See editorial in Nacion.com: “Two decades of stories“ (In Spanish)