Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

In an effort to attract the government's attention, trucker unions across Peru threatened on Friday to begin an indefinite national strike on the same date that the APEC leader's summit is to begin in Lima.

It was reported that transportation unions would take these measures to get Peru's government to address and solve a list of demands.

Alfonso Rivas, head of the national truckers union explained he had met with Peru's exporters association (ADEX), other unions and business people in the sector to explain that a strike had been organized after unions had attempted on several occasions to negotiate with the Ministry of Transportation.

According to transportation unions, the ministry ignored them and refused to address their issues.

"Business people have understood our reasons, in the sense that the problems we have are not because we have not attempted to negotiate or because we want to start trouble during the APEC summit," said the Rivas.

He affirmed that on top of the fact that the transportation ministry did not solve their problems, it created more difficulties for the country's trucking sector.

Of the nine points unions wish to address, eight involve new laws being passed by congress to penalize drivers with prison terms.

Peru's Ministry of Transportation and congress are currently passing laws to impose prison sentences on the owners of companies whose drivers break transit laws or are responsible for the death of passengers and motorists.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Even though the Municipality of Lima opened part of the new bypass at the intersection of Universitaria and Venezuela avenues in the Limean district of Cercado de Lima yesterday, it is not known whether the project will be completed or not.

While two bridges running over Universitaria Avenue have been built, the municipality had to stop working in an area near San Marcos University after the country's National Institute for Culture declared that construction work was affecting ancient ruins.

University representatives had already established a deal with the municipality to give up some of its campus to build a wider road. Despite the agreement and the fact that walls had been taken down to start construction, student protests brought construction work to a halt.

It is now unknown whether Venezuela Avenue will be widened and whether the university will have its walls and gates replaced.

The Municipality of Lima will finish construction work in two months and leave the area as it is if an agreement is not reached with university representatives and the INC, reported El Comercio newspaper.

If the municipality is not permitted to finish, those that will be worst affected are students because they will not have bus stops, sidewalks or pedestrian bridges, said Carola Cuadros, project coordinator for the Municipality of Lima.

Communication between municipal authorities and university representatives broke down after construction workers demolished the university's outer wall on June 29.

Work on Universitaria and Venezuela avenues, the roads in front of the university's main entrances, was stopped after students repeatedly attacked construction workers with rocks and sticks.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

From January to August of this year, Peru's transit police have arrested over 6,000 motorists driving drunk in Lima, reported Colonel Carlos Vega García, a department head for Peru's national police.

This is 19 percent higher than the people arrested driving under the influence of alcohol in the same period in 2007, said Colonel Vega.

Furthermore, it was reported that the majority of people had been stopped in districts such as Barranco, Miraflores and Cercado de Lima.

Police reported that once motorists suspected of driving under the influence were stopped, they were obligated to pass a sobriety test.

Motorists can receive punishments ranging from having their car impounded and their licenses revoked to spending four years in prison for refusing to take sobriety tests and driving drunk, said police representatives.

According to police statistics, 447 people have died because of traffic accidents in Lima so far this year.

Of this total, 98 were drunk driving-related deaths.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

In the following thirty days, Peru's ministry of transportation and communications is to approve a series of modifications made to punishments imposed on bus owners and transportation company heads that commit certain infractions.

According to the modifications, which were approved by congress on August 28 and published in the country's official gazette on Sunday, public transport vehicle owners as well as the owners of transportation companies will have to respond to the ministry for any accident that takes place with their vehicles.

Once the new laws are approved, public transportation companies as well as bus owners will be sanctioned in the same manner bus drivers are.

That is, bus drivers will not be the only ones to receive tickets and fines, but the company's they work for will receive them as well.

Depending on the case, the ministry of transportation will now have the right to cancel transportation company concessions.

These changes will make it easier to have more severe punishments placed on the city's transportation companies, said Luis Quispe Candia, a public transport specialist.

Quispe explained that 95 percent of the drivers that worked for transportation companies were not on payroll, making it possible for companies to avoid taking responsibility for traffic accidents.

The measures are to apply to Lima's public transportation vehicles as well as companies that provide services to other parts of Peru.

Authorities in Peruvian regions of Huánuco, Ancash and Ucayali will create a special commission to plan the construction of a railroad connecting the port city of Chimbote with Cruzeiro do Sul city, located in the Brazilian State of Acre.

The railroad lines would pass through the provinces of Pallasca, Casma, Aguaytía, Huánuco, Pucallpa and Puerto Esperanza located in Peru's Central Highlands and Amazon regions.

The announcement was made by the governor of Huánuco, Jorge Espinoza, who explained that this working group would include governors, mayors and civil society representatives from all three departments.

Espinoza said this project seeks to boost tourism and trade activities along the economic corridor embracing the three regions.

He added that this initiative was based on the sustainable use of natural resources, while promoting industrial productivity and growth.

News source: ANDINA

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Within the next few days, Peru's constitutional court is to rule on weather a vehicle importation company will be allowed to import 28,850 used and damaged cars, trucks and buses into the Andean country.

According to the importation company, it presented its contract to bring the vehicles into Peru in the year 2000, when laws against this type of importation did not exist.

Aside from violating current judicial and constitutional laws, this importation would negatively affect the environment, people's health and safety on Peru's highways, reported local news.

On August 27, Peru's constitutional court heard arguments against World Cars Import presented by lawyers for the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Economy and SUNAT, the country's tax authority.

Current Peruvian laws state that cars over five years old or which have been used over 80,000 kilometers (49,709 miles) can not be imported.

This is also the case for diesel engine trucks that are more than two years old and have been used for more than 200,000 kilometers (124,274 miles).

According to José Martín Ojeda Dávila, a representative for World Cars Import, the company signed a contract to progressively import the vehicles into Peru in January 2000, years before these laws had been established.

The demand to import the vehicles was brought to the constitutional court after a panel of judges in Ica denied the company's request, explaining that World Cars Import did not officially register itself with tax authorities until 2007.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Two million Limean motorists will benefit from a new bypass that was opened at the intersection of Universitaria and Colonial avenues, announced the Municipality of Lima early Friday morning.

The bypass, which is a six lane bridge with exit ramps and three pedestrian bridges, is 550 meters long and will connect the districts of Cercado de Lima and Callao, said municipal authorities.

The new bypass will save motorists a considerable amount of time and put an end to constant traffic jams at the intersection of Universitaria and Colonial avenues, said the mayor of Lima, Luis Castañeda.

The mayor explained that the bridge was completely operational but that work still needed to be done under it and 10,000 square meters of grass were to be planted.

Residents in Cercado de Lima, San Miguel, Pueblo Libre, San Martín de Porres and Callao as well as students attending the University of San Marcos and Católica University will all benefit from this bypass, said Castañeda.

Twenty-eight million soles were invested on this project.

Aside from this project, the municipality is working on a double bypass in Villa El Salvador, a highway in Manchay, Grau Highway, a double bypass in Puente Piedra, bridges in La Victoria and Santa Maria as well as a bypass on Habich Avenue among others, said the mayor.

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

The problem the Municipality of Lima is having with representatives of San Marcos University is repeating itself with authorities at the National University of Engineering (UNI), said reporters for La Republica daily on Friday.

Germán Grajeda, a university head at UNI and the representative of Petrouni bus station, which belongs to UNI, has affirmed property will not be given to the Municipality of Lima to expand Panamericana Norte Highway.

"We are not going to give them one square centimeter and they can't take it away from us because they would be violating our rights," said Grajeda.

"We are not squatters."

As it was previously announced, the municipality has planned to build an additional three lanes on Panamericana Norte Highway in the district of San Martin de Porres.

The lanes are to be two kilometers - over one mile - in length.

To accomplish this deed, authorities would need to use half of the property belonging to Petrouni bus station and the land where Fiori bus station is located.

The municipality has already closed Fiori bus station, affirming it had been operating illegally for over 20 years.

"We are not squatters or street vendors they can come and order off this land," stated Grajeda.

"We purchased the area we are using and it's registered."

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Comparing political change to an old bus in bad shape, reporters for El Comercio daily affirmed policies to renew the vehicles on Peru's streets were being passed at an extremely slow pace.

It was reported that all Latin American countries that had begun programs to get rid of old vehicles had started with their countries' public transportation buses.

20,466 public transportation vehicles (buses, microbuses, vans) would have to be taken off Lima's streets if the government were to place regulations on vehicles that are more than 15 years old, said municipal authorities.

This is 75 percent of the vehicles currently providing public transportation services in the country's capital, reported El Comercio.

Despite the increasing problem with Peru's old public transportation system, the government passed a law in December 2007 aimed at getting rid of taxis 10 years old and older.

When analyzing this program, representatives for the country's Automobile Association calculated that 120,000 cars qualified for this program.

If $2,500 is given to the owner of each car for turning their old vehicle into scrap metal, the government will manage to get rid of 20,000 vehicles with its $50 million budget, said Gustavo Navarro, a department head at the ministry of energy and mines.

The ministry of economy is still evaluating whether it is going to approve the program or not.