Puerto Vallarta Launches Public Bus Pilot Route Program

In order to alleviate increasing traffic problems in Puerto Vallarta’s downtown area, the city implemented a pilot program last weekend to decrease bus numbers in town by up to 50 percent. Puerto Vallarta is served by almost 30 different bus routes. Given Puerto Vallarta’s layout, most if not all routes converge in the city’s downtown area. However, whereas buses usually begin their routes full of passengers, by the time they reach downtown, many are traveling back to back, with only a handful of passengers each, even when up to 9,000 people take the public bus downtown on a daily basis.

In the past, locals have been reluctant to consider downtown as a pedestrian-only area, and they have been equally disinclined to consider having to take more than one bus to reach their destination. As part of the new pilot route program, some of the routes covering the northern outskirts of the city would only travel as far as the stadium (across from the Sheraton hotel) at which point, passengers would have to take a free transfer to another bus that would only circulate through the downtown area. In doing so, the number of buses going through downtown Puerto Vallarta would decrease.

Last weekend’s pilot program was successful in transferring over 3,000 passengers from one bus to another to continue their trip downtown without considerable delays. Amilcar Lopez Zepeda, Director of Jalisco’s Public Transportation Department, traveled from Guadalajara to oversee the operation. “We didn’t have any major problems,” he commented. Early on we had waiting times of up to six or seven minutes for passengers to transfer from one bus to another, but on average, the waiting time for the transfer was around two minutes.”

The pilot program will continue, moving forward with additional transfer spots considered at Parque Hidalgo and Parque Lazaro Cardenas, until the new transfers are fine-tuned and made official.

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State and municipal authorities have begun a period of valuation of public transport in Puerto Vallarta, with which they will determine the possibility of reducing 50 percent of public transport units in the city center, according to Luis Alberto Romero Chávez, president of the company Costa Pacífico (UNIBUS).

Chávez said that he is in talks with both the municipal government and the state government to see if they could create transfer centers, which would be located on Francisco Medina Ascencio Avenue at the height of the Agustín Flores Contreras Sports Center in both directions.

He explained, “If the user goes in a truck that does not reach the center, they could transfer to another bus to access their destination downtown, for now only the study is being conducted and no official plans have been determined.”

He did note that transfers would be free to users entering and exiting the city center.

“The only thing we are looking for is to give a boost to the downtown area of ??Puerto Vallarta, as the municipal president and the governor mentioned, that the downtown area has more life again and one of the proposals that are being made is to address congestion in the city center, taking out 50 percent of the public transport units so that restaurants, hotels, and shops that are in that area have a better flow of vehicles ”.

Romero Chavez said that this does not seek to cause an upset with bus users, but that anyone who goes to the city center can enjoy the area with a lower flow of buses and congestion on the already crowded narrow streets of Puerto Vallarta.

And finally, he pointed out, there are days when 450 trucks enter the city center, but from the start of the boardwalk, many of the units only have three or four passengers and the only thing they cause is traffic and an inconvenience to pedestrians.