Municipal authorities failed to ward off the public transport strike in the capital of Cauca.
For this February 22 throughout the country, a sector of public transport will carry out a day of protest, as a claim for the high price of gasoline and against the platforms of that service, including Uber.
In Popayán, although there were some agreements, the municipal authorities were unable to ward off the public transport strike called by some national associations in that sector.
According to an audio circulating on social networks, in the capital Cauca the taxi drivers will not carry out marches, but roadblocks. The meeting place will be La Salud Park, at 5:00 am on February 22, Ash Wednesday, from where they will travel, around 6:00 am, to Campanario and Virgen de Los Hoyos, neuralgic sectors of mobility in the city, this by the taxi transporter union. Meanwhile, the intermunicipal union, at seven in the morning, will block the entrance and exit of Popayán, to the north in Río Blanco, and to the south, in La Bocana, via Timbío, further in front of Mi bohío. Apparently, it will also block passage in the vicinity of the TransTambo gas station.
According to the Secretary of Transit and Transportation of Popayán, Jaime Andrés Patiño Chaparro, at the invitation of the Ministry of Transportation, headed by the Territorial Director of Cauca, with the accompaniment of the Municipal Ombudsman and the Ombudsman, in conversation with the transportation sector, some agreements were reached and commitment documents were signed to prevent them from following the de facto paths in the municipality of Popayán. “To claim rights that formal transport demands, that is why agreements were reached. We have been able to delimit forceful actions that must even begin to operate from today, February 21. We will continue in the work of managing the dialogue and being able to help together to build the city”.
Despite those talks, local authorities were unable to dissuade the transporters from blockading the city in several directions.