Modes of transportation throughout the city, by Elena Vittori

One of the main things that I was surprised to see about Sevilla was the effectiveness of the numerous modes of transportation throughout the city. Since the first week that I moved to Sevilla I have been able to utilize so many different ways of public transportation throughout the city which I usually wouldn’t have used, neither in the United States or Italy for that matter. It was so interesting for me to experience not only how clean and well kept the public transport is, but also how no matter what, they are always on time, safe and very reliable to use. In Rome it was almost impossible for me to use the metro or the public buses as it was common for them to arrive late and many times not have enough space for everyone. Moreover, my experiences with the metro in Rome have never been pleasant due to the fact that it wouldn’t take you to certain places around the city and it wasn’t always safe to ride. Similarly, when I moved to New York some years ago, I was shocked to see how the metro and buses were terribly kept, and were absolutely unsafe to ride; it is very common to hear on the news about attacks on the metros and on the buses of NYC and to spot rats and other animals in the subways. The incidents in the city have almost been normalized to the point where you hear on the news weekly of people being pushed on the train tracks or stabbed in the metros. There is also a vast population of homeless people and mentally ill people roaming public transportation in New York which has made it extremely unsafe and worrisome for anyone to ride in.

On the other hand, coming to Sevilla has left me extremely pleased to ride in any type of transportation, wether its public bicycles, electric ones, metro or buses. It is amazing to see how every morning and night there are workers cleaning the stations, and see how people are extremely respectful of public transportation means. The use of public bicycles has been very effective and one of my main uses of public transport. Electric bikes are also very well kept and have their own parking lots so they are easy to spot and use which has not been the same experience when I would use them in Rome or NY; in both cities it is common to see abandoned bikes or broken ones which are left anywhere in the streets, making that specific mode of transport ineffective to utilize. Sevilla on the other hand has proved to provide exceptional transportation systems. Additionally, I have been taking the metro every morning to go to university and I have never not felt safe riding there; even after soccer games, the organization of the metro and buses was outstanding as there was no incidents of people being attacked or problems at all; there has always been security and workers managing the flow of people in a very effective manner. Overall it was an interesting culture shock which I was pleased to experience