Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter
Commuters boarding a JUTC bus in downtown Kingston recently. Some sectors of the travelling public, faced with transportation fare hikes effective last Sunday, are finding it hard to cope with the increases. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
BUS AND taxi fares driving you mad? Well you're not the only one.
Following Sunday's increase in public transportation charges, stories have been popping up from across the island: Residents refusing to pay the newly-hiked fares; crafty passengers pulling out all stops to try and beat the system. There's even one story of a conniving fellow who faked blindness just to avoid paying the full fare!
A Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus conductor, while leaning lazily on a filthy white bus in Cross Roads, St. Andrew, giggled as he told The Gleaner of one man's attempt to deceive another conductor in Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, that morning.
"The man walk on to the bus with a wooden cane and dark glasses and begging help. But what he didn't know was that the conductor know him from long time and know him not blind.
"The man take out $20 and start beg change. The conductor just kiss him teeth and say, 'Wayne, this want $30 more.' When the blind man hear him name call, him get back sight same time!" he chuckled.
NO FAIR, NO FARE
Meanwhile, in other parts of the island, some passengers simply refused to pay the increased fares.
Orlando Patterson, who operates a taxi in May Pen, Clarendon, said he had trouble collecting the new fare from his passengers on Sunday. "Them give me all kind of story. Them say them not paying 'cause them don't have no money to pay. Them say they don't get any increase so them cannot afford it," he said. "One man even get mad and start argue that Government don't take taxi, so that's why them raise it so easy."
In the Corporate Area yesterday, though passengers were a tad more cooperative, they were far from happy.
One woman who stood at a bus stop in Liguanea, St. Andrew, was visibly upset. When asked how she felt about the increased fare to travel within the city, her face became uglified with a scowl, furrowed eyebrows and an accompanying angry grunt.
"Don't ask me foolishness. This is going to set me right back. I out to start ride bicycle to go where I'm going," she mumbled.
