Transantiago. That's the name of the new bus system that's arrived this month in Santiago, and it's not quite working yet.

You have to understand a few details before you will know why this is a problem. First, we have a car. It's actually a Hyundai 12-passenger van. But gasoline is at approximately US$5.00 per gallon. So it pays to take the bus if you are going further than you can walk realistically or if you are leaving town. Otherwise, it's more economical to take public transportation.

The old system of buses was long-standing and well-known. Individual owners controlled small numbers of buses with small groups of drivers, and the government set the price for a bus ride depending on the cost of fuel. These routes would go from one end of town to another, usually at least an hour-and-a-half in one-way time. So you could usually take one bus wherever you wanted to go.

There were problems with this system, of course. Lots of routes used the same main streets, so the bus noise and pollution was unimaginable in some parts of town. For example, at a certain stop downtown, pre-Transantiago, you could catch a bus for any one of maybe 20 different routes. So at any one time there might be 20 different buses trying to stop at one bus stop. Also, the buses themselves operated with some significant emissions problems, and often would break down in mid-route.

So now, equipped with foreign loans, the government has organized a system in which five mega-companies own fleets of regulation-passing Volvo buses. The idea is that "local" buses run short routes within the different burroughs of Santiago, bringing passengers to transfer points. Passengers can then travel by subway ("Metro") or by a long-haul bus to another transfer point, where they can take another local bus closer to their actual destination. A payment system of prepaid smart chip cards allows you to make transfers within 90 minutes of the start of your first segment.

If it sounds like lots of transfers to you, you are right. Add on to that the fact that in its first week, the average wait for Transantiago is 11.5 minutes. If you have 11.5 minutes to wait for the first bus, then at your first transfer there are 11.5 more, and finally for your last transfer you wait 11.5 minutes more, that's an average of 34.5 minutes each passenger is waiting for Transantiago. You can imagine that people are not impressed.

Also, the routes take you far away from the more direct route that you previously took. For example, to go from our apartment to Rachel's school used to take me walking two blocks to the main street, one bus of 10 possibilities with approximately a 3 minute wait, and walking three blocks to the school. Now I have to take one "long-haul" bus (only one goes that way) from the same corner halfway to the school, get off, wait for a different bus (one of two possibilities), and travel the rest of the way, then walk to school. I count myself blessed that I have the option of taking the Metro for the second leg of my new journey, but as you can see, it will take a lot longer with more segments.

On top of all this, there are other questions. Why are the drivers not being paid their contracted salary? Will the new payment cards charge correctly, and will they open doors for fraud? Are there enough buses for the people who want to ride? What will happen when a whole mega-company of buses decides to go on strike, as is common in Chile?

All I know is this: I don't know how to get anywhere anymore. Hopefully all this works itself out before I get myself really lost...