Argentina's commuter rail privatization woes provoke riot

this is a shame for several reasons... one, that lousy train service should be more prevalent in the "lower income" districts of the city... two, that train service gets to the point where commuters riot... three, that the lovely re-hab job to estación constitución was victimized in the process... and four, it's yet another failure of privatization...



Estación Constitución

Commuters, enraged by constant delays in train service to Buenos Aires’ mostly lower-income southern suburbs set fire on Tuesday evening to parts of Buenos Aires City’s Constitución station, looted nearby shops and clashed with riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and teargas.

Passenger frustrations came to a head after service was interrupted at the evening rush hour by a train that broke down on a track just outside the station, blocking other trains from leaving the station that serves some 300,000 commuters daily.

Buenos Aires area commuter railway lines were privatized in the 1990s during Menem’s tenure, and passengers for years have complained about the failure of the new operators to provide timely service on overcrowded routes.

there's an ugly little secret that isn't mentioned in the article... as a buenos aires commuter rail user, i've had the opportunity to make a few observations...

as the article notes, estación constitución primarily serves the "lower income southern suburbs..." estación retiro, on the other side of downtown, serves quite a few of the other outlying districts, including the wealthy northern suburbs... the tigre line, the one i use, is the line that serves those wealthier 'burbs... (self-disclosure: i am FAR from wealthy nor would i even necessarily put myself in the category of modest means... i am fortunate to have a nice, simple little place in a quiet, treed neighborhood that just so happens to be on the tigre line...)

here's the dirty secret... the tigre line is the only commuter rail line that offers air-conditioned cars... another recent feature on the line is the installation of overhead flat-panel video screens that show short features like movie reviews, trivia quizzes, photo features of argentina attractions, etc., plus advertising (of course)... none of this is offered on the other lines operating out of retiro...

now let's move to estación constitución... a number of the cars on the lines operating out of constitución don't even have DOORS and quite a few more don't have GLASS in the windows... that alone might provoke me to riotous behavior...

meanwhile, the tigre line moves on...



A two-level car planned for Linea Tigre
(Trenes de Buenos Aires)

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