Mi lucha y la de otros estudiantes para volver a casa/My struggle and that of other students to return home.[ESP/ENG]
Hello, this is my first time posting in this community. I'm posting here because I can't find a community specifically for this topic. I want to share a problem I've been experiencing since I started university. I started university about a year ago, and adapting to the commute I have to make every week hasn't been easy, since my university is on the outskirts of the town where I live, and I have to use public transportation to get there. The problem I have is something that affects me and many other students at the same university. It's about the public transportation, which consists of shared taxis. They're basically old cars where you pay for a seat per person. The problem is that they don't want to follow their designated routes. These drivers are supposed to pass by the university, which is next to the bus terminal on the outskirts of the city. The excuse they always give is that they don't have enough gas and that the fare is too low to cover their expenses. It's understandable to a certain extent, but these drivers always like to raise the fare. We hadn't even been at the university for a month when they had already raised the fare again. My personal opinion on this problem between the students and the public transportation is that it's fine if they raise the fare; it's understandable due to the inflation affecting the bolivar, my country's currency. But what does it cost them to follow the route and take the students to the university? It has happened to me several times that they don't pass by the university, and I have no other option but to walk home little by little. And I'm not the only one; many students are already used to this and don't even mind walking to and from the university because it might happen that they don't have money to pay for the shared taxi or that the taxis don't even pass by the university.
One time, my friends and I were talking outside the university after our classes had finished. We were waiting for a shared taxi, but because of the time of day, it took a long time for one to arrive. The only shared taxi that did show up refused to take us because, according to the driver, he didn't want to waste gas, so we decided to walk. We couldn't stay there much longer; it was very late and quite dangerous. While the difficult situation of public transport workers and the risks they face are understandable, something should be done to address the transportation problem for students, whether it's slightly reducing the fare or simply having public transport vehicles go to the university to pick up students, something that often doesn't happen. This forces students to walk home, which can be dangerous, as there have been reported cases of students being robbed while walking.