Marrakech Students Face Transit Crisis as Bus Services Deteriorate

Weakness of the bus services on line 421B, repeated delays in trips, lengthening of travel times compared to the previous situation... These are the complaints received by the local section of Marrakech of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights from the residents of Tamansourt, in particular the trainees who continue their training at the Vocational Training Institute. They also complain about the continuous deterioration of the transport service within the city and between it and the city of Marrakech.

Other difficulties: the lack of connection between the different sections via a regular means since the division of line 441 into two sub-lines six years ago, thus isolating the Atlas annex from the Fath district, and the persistent lack of taxi stations at the two administrative annexes, with the only alternative being an improvised station in the heart of the Jardins de Yasmin housing estate. The local section of Marrakech of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights deplores the lack of consideration for the problems of the new city of Tamansourt and the absence of positive interactions to improve the quality of transport services between Marrakech and the latter.

This situation plunges students, trainees from vocational training institutes, as well as large segments of the active population of the Sidi Ghanem industrial zone and other categories of citizens into daily suffering and a waste of school or professional time, particularly during peak hours, notes the association, calling on the competent authorities for urgent intervention to create a real infrastructure of services in the city and to provide basic services, including public transport.

It also requests that access to it be fluid and accessible. It proposes to compel the urban transport company Alsa, which holds the monopoly on this service, to respect the departure schedules of the trips and the stops, to renew its fleet to avoid recurring breakdowns, and to immediately remove the dilapidated buses currently in service that do not respect the dignity of citizens, replacing them with new vehicles in order to improve the public transport service and guarantee students and workers specific buses, especially during peak hours.