by Rod Hughes

In the three years that the interurban train has been functioning, the number of passengers using it has tripled, reported the daily La Nacion today. The passenger service revived the moribund Costa Rican railway system and provided reasonably fast, low cost transportation desperately needed by such commuters as University of Costa Rica students.

As the cost of gasoline surges, the number of passengers may continue to skyrocket as residents with business in downtown San Jose leave their cars in their garages. Today, the cost of gasoline shot up another 40 colones (that’s per liter, not the much larger gallon) and RECOPE, the national refinery, filed with regulators for another 60 colones as oil soared to nearly $140 per barrel.

Comparing the first five months of 2005 and this year, the number of train passengers rose from 139,000 to 461,000 over that period. In just this year, the number of passengers has surpassed the figure for all of 2006. So successful is the train that the nationalized railway system (INCOFER) has been forced to institute two new schedules.

Passenger ticket rates also reflect the attraction of taking the train: currently the full route from the private Universidad Latin in the San Pedro area to Pavas costs only a 100-colon coin. But that may change; INCOFER has filed a request with regulators to charge 300 colones, a little over 60 U.S. cents. Although hardly a bullet train, the rattling old cars are still faster than fighting San Jose’s legendary traffic jams. INCOFER notes that taking a bus for the above full distance takes 35 minutes more and that the price of a ticket has not changed since the service was inaugurated nearly 3 years ago.

But the Ministry of Transport’s track to use new inter-suburban bus routes to fight fuel prices and help the country to save imported fuel has been temporarily derailed. Scarcely before this mass transit measure was to go into effect, a court ruled that the ministry had not followed proper procedure in its granting of the concessions for the routes. Minister Karla Gonzalez argues that the new routes offer attractions in convenience to bus users.

The current system routes all buses into downtown San Jose, increasing traffic congestion, pollution and taking more time as suburban passengers travel to the San Jose terminal and trudge to another terminal to board a bus to their destintion in another suburb. It is little wonder that they grit their teeth to pay high fuel prices to take their cars.