Thursday, December 08, 2005
Could this be what foments such irrational hatred against Chavez?
As has been pointed a number of times in this blog Venezuela`s very strong economic performance has led to a boom in automobile sales. In fact, we saw more evidence of that a couple of days ago when El Universal reported that through the end of November automobile sales have totalled 204,349 which is an outstanding by Venezuelan standards. This represents an increase of 73% over last year.
However, there is a downside to this boom in car sales. And that is all these cars have to go some where and right now they are clogging up practically every road and highway in Venezuela. On the intercity highways traffic is oftent backed up for miles behind toll booths. The Francisco Farjardo highway, the main east-west expressway in Caracas which is 5 lanes wide at points often seems more like a parking lot than an expressway. And city streets of Barquisimeto and Caracas are so choked with cars and busses it often takes a half hour just to go a dozen blocks. Just to give you an idea here are some pictures of what I am talking about:
This is mid-day traffic on Baralt Avenue (yes, of the coup fame) in western Caracas
And this is what the regular street traffic in the other side of town, eastern Caracas, looks like. This traffic moves at a crawl and you can walk to places faster than you can drive to them.
Maybe it`s sitting and fuming in all this insane traffic that litteraly drives the opposition crazy? How else can one explain how while the economy booms the voices of eastern Caracas are ever more shrill and irrational?
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However, there is a downside to this boom in car sales. And that is all these cars have to go some where and right now they are clogging up practically every road and highway in Venezuela. On the intercity highways traffic is oftent backed up for miles behind toll booths. The Francisco Farjardo highway, the main east-west expressway in Caracas which is 5 lanes wide at points often seems more like a parking lot than an expressway. And city streets of Barquisimeto and Caracas are so choked with cars and busses it often takes a half hour just to go a dozen blocks. Just to give you an idea here are some pictures of what I am talking about:
This is mid-day traffic on Baralt Avenue (yes, of the coup fame) in western Caracas
And this is what the regular street traffic in the other side of town, eastern Caracas, looks like. This traffic moves at a crawl and you can walk to places faster than you can drive to them.
Maybe it`s sitting and fuming in all this insane traffic that litteraly drives the opposition crazy? How else can one explain how while the economy booms the voices of eastern Caracas are ever more shrill and irrational?
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