Public transport is one of the sectors slowest to recover from the economic crisis that hit Cuba in 1991, when it lost its former socialist bloc partners in eastern Europe. Gross domestic product (GDP) fell by nearly 35 percent, following the sudden halt in oil imports from the former Soviet Union.
The other side of the coin is that 49.4 percent of all trips within Cuba in 2006 used “alternative means,” such as state vehicles at “embarkation points”, bicycle taxis (actually tricycles with room to carry two passengers) and animal-drawn carts. The figure does not include private collective taxis, known as “almendrones” (big almonds) because so many are large, long 1950s vintage cars.
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