City Hall Touts Transit Progress as Commuters Brave Heat and Rain

The Belize City Council is touting its electric bus pilot as a step forward for public transportation, but for many commuters, one glaring problem remains impossible to ignore. While the buses may be modern, the infrastructure to support the people who rely on them has lagged, leaving passengers exposed to scorching sun and heavy rain as they wait. City officials now acknowledge the shortcoming and say plans are finally in motion to close a gap that many residents have been dealing with since the project’s launch.

 

Eluide Miller, Deputy Mayor, Belize City

“I think that is a fair concern, but I must share with you that it is one we have a plan in place to address. I do not want to preempt but I can share with you that there will be a very modern new bus stop that will soon be constructed in front of Battlefield Park Area, central downtown. And I say modern bus stop, because it will truly be a modern one. But also, what we are planning to do between now and the end of this term and I think even into the next term, the new city council will have to dedicate some resources into upgrading some of the infrastructure that currently exist in terms of bus stops across the city and we will also have to build some new bus stops to service the new routes that will be established for some of those new electric buses we will soon be taking on. I think you have to recall that this e-mobility project started as a pilot to be able to inform us about the viability or functionality of electric buses in Belize. So it had a limited buses of sort and that was not necessarily factored in.’

 

CitCo has recorded close to four hundred thousand rides on its two e-buses since the pilot was launched in July 2024.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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