I was having a great time photographing Buenos Aires when there in early January, and posting images on Instagram as I took them (seach for pricetags – Gordon Price). But then my phone camera filled up, and strange things happened. Something to do with the cloud.
Good news: I’ve found the images I thought I lost, plus others I subsequently took – so it’s time to start posting again. But not, this time, on Instagram; it’s too hard to type the commentary and post multiple images. So I’ll be using this blog, posting an image or two at a time throughout the week, but with a more extended commentary on that great city.
Your comments and additional insights are, of course, welcome.
It certainly seems to have agreed with you! People I know have had two reactions on going to BA recently. First-timers love it, those who visited in 80;s and ’90’s bemoan how infrastructure such as sidewalks have crumbled. All a result of the economic meltdown in 2002 I imagine. Looks like it finally rebounding.
I read a stat somewhere that in the 1920s Canada and Argentina had roughly similarly sized economies, but after that we continued going up while they went down.
Gordon, This has been an amazing series, truly an eye-opener I’m sure for your readers for self-evident reasons – it’s an incredible city. For me, more sore since I lived there as a a kid in the late 70’s, early 80’s. So much has changed and so much remains the same.
My question to you in this context: BsAs has a varied and incredibly extensive mixed transportation network – a large Metropolitan Rail Network, Subte (underground subway, now over 100 years old!), Light Rail, MetroBus, the Colectivos and now the Ecobici (free bike share). On top of this there’s the extensive Taxi system and evidently a lot less cars on the road then 3 decades ago!
How do you find the experience of using the various different transportation forms? Fares used to be distances based, with Colectivo drivers calculating a fare, selling you a ticket and giving you change, all while driving in crazy traffic. Has that been tamed? Are fares still individual trip, distance based? Does the SUBE card (Compass Card) work interchangeably across transportation modes? Is there coordination between connections, or is the service just so ubiquitous, you just wait and the next one just comes along shortly? How is late night service – Portenos don’t even start their evenings until 10. How is the late night service? How extensive and reliable is their App based solutions for trip planning, etc?
Basically, all the questions to see if Translink and Metro Vancouver has an opportunity to to look and learn from this massive Latin City who are doing amazing things on a limited budget ?
Enjoy the remainder of your trip and look forward to more segments!
Author
I came to realize how spoiled I now am by the combination of Compass and Transit App in Vancouver. I needed a one-stop shop that showed me all my options, how to pay and how to get from one place to the other.
We really only used Subte, Uber and feet. The bus and colectivo system was intimidating because of complexity and language. Would loved to have used Ecobici but couldn’t figure out how to register. Again, language.