Bogota’s government and the Association of Small Transporters (Apetrans) reached an agreement on Thursday evening, ending the transit strike that has paralyzed the city for the past four days.
Starting on Friday morning, buses out of service since the strike started on Monday will return to the roads. Classes in public schools and the “pico y placa” traffic regulation system will also resume on Friday as well.
Alfonso Perez, president of Apetrans, agreed to the rate of 1.5% monthly over a twenty-year period, that the city would pay drivers to exchange old buses for newer models. Drivers had wanted the percentage to be higher, but the municipal government would not budge.
However, as a compromise, Lopez negotiated that the original trade-in value of each bus would be 5% higher than before, thus finding a way to raise the monthly amount that drivers would receive without raising the monthly percentage figure.
Transporters also agreed to rule out strikes as a negotiation tool in the future, and Perez apologized for the chaos that the strike caused in the city.
