Rearranging Panama City traffic

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Martín's traffic changes
photos by Eric Jackson

Let us not find irrationality where there is a logical explanation.

True, the recent changes in street directions and bus routes are in many ways a new set of annoyances. The growing traffic gridlock has not been eased. Now a lot of people need to walk several blocks more to get the bus they need. Navigating around the city has become a bit more bewildering, although with time people will get used to the changes and this problem will abate.

And what about the cost? Looking at it in terms of recent history, it might be cheaper than to carry out the promise, made in President Torrijos's first month in office, of computer-synchronized traffic lights throughout the capital city. But looking at it by going around the city now, you see the cost not just in the painting of new lines on the pavement and new signs along the streets, but most expensively in this army of temporary Transito workers who don't seem to be doing anything.

But we all know that this is not the way that it works. People who get hack jobs do work, but generally the hack jobs are the payment for the political campaigning they do for the PRD.

The rearrangement of Panama City's traffic flow and bus routes is quite sensible --- it's about the use of public funds for partisan political purposes.