With the recent hike, the
users of the Chilean public transportation services pay some of the highest
fares in the region
Peoples Dispatch 17
Oct 2019
For the past several days,
high school students in Chile’s capital Santiago, have been evading the payment
of metro tickets and are traveling for free to protest the recent hike in
Santiago Metro fare, recently announced by the right-wing government of
President Sebastián Piñera.
On October 6, the Ministry of
Transport and Telecommunication, announced through a resolution, an increase in
the fare of Metropolitan Public Transport Network, which affects citizens
traveling by buses, Metro and Central Train in 32 communes in the province of
Santiago. According to the new traffic structure, during peak hours, the metro
ticket will cost 830 Chilean pesos (1.16 USD) and the bus ticket costs 710
Chilean pesos (1 USD), making Chilean public transportation services one of the
most expensive transportation services in Latin America.
The protest action began last
Friday October 11, when over 80 students from the National Institute stormed
the University of Chile, Bellas Artes and Santa Lucía metro stations, jumped
the turnstiles and entered platforms without paying for tickets.
The protests continued on
Monday, October 14 and expanded to six other stations and were joined by
hundreds of students from different educational institutes. The mass fare
evasions were carried out at three different times during the day. In response
to the protests, the Santa Ana, Pedro de Valdivia, Quinta Normal, Cumming,
Santa Isabel and Irarrázaval metro stations on Line 1 and 5 were closed or
operated partially under heavy police surveillance.
The hashtag #EvasiónMasiva
(#MassEvasion) trended on social media to call on people to permanently evade
the payment of metro tickets as a way of expressing discontent with the hike.
In response, on October 15,
the entrance to key stations were heavily guarded and surveilled by the
national police force, the Carabineros. In addition, metro stations such as Los
Leones and University of Chile half-opened their gates to avoid the fare
evasion tactic. Whereas, the stations Plaza de Armas and Puente Cal & Canto
closed their gates before the presence of students outside the stations.
However, this was not enough to stop the waves of students, who carried out a
series of mass evasions at the University of Chile, Cumming, Plaza de Armas and
Quinta Normal stations.
A great majority of working
class in Santiago rejected the government’s decision and supported young
chileans. They also condemned the alleged solution of the Minister of Economy,
Juan Andrés Fontaine, who proposed that users get up early so they can access a
slightly less expensive ticket
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