Bus War on the Santa Ana - San José Route
Since 1988, the Empresa de Transportes Santa Ana (Etransa), known for their green and white buses, have been providing service on the Santa Ana - San José route until last Tuesday, when the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) decided to give the route- temporarily - to the Compañía de Inversiones La Tapachula S. A., who also operates the Escazú - San José route.

Both operators would provide services on the same stretch of road between San José and Escazú, where the green buses headed west to Santa Ana, while the blue buses moved around the Escazú area.

Transit police had to take a strong hand in the situation when Etransa continued to provide service even though it did not have the route any longer. Transit officials say that they had to intervene several buses on the route, including removing the license plates from five Etransa buses.

According to the Consejo de Transporte Público (CTP) del MOPT, Etransa lost it's concession as of April 15 when the their license to operate the route had expired. The concession was not renewed because the company could not deal properly with the number of customer complaints on the route, according to the MOPT.

A lawyer for Etransa defended the company blaming the CTP for their problems, that one of the major complaints was that they did not have sufficient buses to cover the route properly and that they could not add any new buses to the route because they did not have the approval from the CTP.

The company claims it has been trying to add 23 buses to the route since 1997. To further the problems of the company, in 1999 the company and it's fleet was placed in the hands of a financial creditor, who continued the action to add buses to the route, to which the MOPT would not make a decision until the ownership of the company and the buses was cleared up by the courts.

The company's lawyers says that the buses were never sold off and that a deal was made with creditors, however the MOPT never renewed the license when it expired in 2003. The case was stalled when Etransa made an application for a "recurso amparo" to the Sala IV or constitutional court charging unfair practices by the MOPT.

Officials at the MOPT say that the Tapachula company will continue to operate the route temporarily while the whole mess get sorted out and will take strong decisive actions against any Etransa buses that operate on the route.

All the bus stops for the Santa Ana - San José route will be kept the same, except that customers have now to be careful when boarding a blue bus - they could wind up in Santa Ana and not Escazú or vice versa.