Is It True Progress or Just a Quick Fix? Havana Adds 20 Repaired Buses Amid Public Transport Crisis

On Saturday, Cuban authorities announced the addition of 20 refurbished buses, utilizing components from a Chinese donation, to Havana's public transport system. This initiative was presented as a gift celebrating the anniversary of the 1959 revolution.

The buses, Yutong ZK 6118 models, were assembled at the Caisa plant (Evelio Prieto Guillama Bus Production Company) located in Guanajay, Artemisa province. They are primarily designated for the terminal in Santiago de las Vegas, a borough of the capital.

According to a report from the newspaper Trabajadores, the refurbishment of these buses is expected to save over $2.5 million by avoiding new purchases. Officials praised the effort as a "labor feat," despite the fact that the parts came from a Chinese gift.

These 20 buses are part of a larger plan to refurbish 100 buses, including 60 rigid and 40 articulated models, using parts from 40 containers donated by Beijing, valued at about $10 million. The shipment arrived in August 2025, with an initial goal to have the first 20 units ready by the end of that year.

However, prolonged power outages and fuel shortages have delayed the timeline by nearly a year. Furthermore, authorities admitted they are still working on how to stabilize routes with the restored buses, meaning their deployment doesn't guarantee immediate service availability.

This announcement starkly contrasts with the ongoing decline of Cuba's national transportation system. In October, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, the Minister of Transport, acknowledged to Reuters that daily interprovincial bus departures from Havana plummeted from 419 in 2025 to a mere 11 in 2026, a staggering 97.4% drop. National routes also dwindled from over 100 to just 21 in the same timeframe.

Back in June, the Ministry of Transport had already implemented cuts, reducing departures from the capital to provincial capitals to just three per week.

Social media users have been less than enthusiastic about the news. In the Facebook group "Las Guaguas Cubanas y el Transporte en Cuba," several citizens questioned the point of adding buses if there isn't enough fuel to keep them running.

"What's the point of giving the 20 buses to Santiago de las Vegas? There's never any fuel to run them, and 70 routes have already been eliminated," one user commented.

Another user pointed out the strain the passenger demand would create. "It's one bus for a million people in two trips; if it has only one spare tire, it wears out faster than if they alternated them," they wrote.

"Mark the date they refurbished them, and you'll see how quickly they're broken down again," another remarked, while a fourth expressed skepticism about the state's ownership model. "As long as they keep saying it's everyone's property (social property), they won't last... let me know how long they do last."

Fuel shortages remain a significant barrier to restoring public transportation, compounded by the government's liquidity crisis and debt, which restricts access to new credit, among other issues.

While authorities celebrate the repair of 20 buses, private transport alternatives can cost up to 5,000 pesos per month in some areas. This figure surpasses the minimum salary of 3,210 pesos, making it difficult for many workers to afford their daily commutes.

Independent writer and journalist Frank Correa, who lives in Jaimanitas, Havana, recently reported that his daughter had been unable to attend her classes at the University of Havana's Faculty of Foreign Languages for a week because the round-trip transportation costs 2,000 Cuban pesos daily, not including meals.