Toll road blues: No such thing as a $2 toll in Mexico
By Daniel
There are parallel highways in Mexico – the free “libre” and the tollway “cuota”. The pleasure of the untrafficked, high speed travel is slightly diminished by the cost – as much as $11 per toll, or in a good driving day, $60 US.
With kids anxious to not spend extra days in the car, one can’t squawk too much about the tolls. At least the roads are speedy. Part of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, has been the construction of superhighways to move freely traded goods north and south. Truly, it’s remarkable infrastructure.
Who does squawk about these toll roads, and with reason, are Mexican common people who 1) cannot afford the tolls to travel on them; 2) whose lands are taken to build the roads and whose communities suffer the subsequent environmental damage; and 3) who watch the 18 wheelers inundate their markets with imported goods and cause to plummet, the prices of goods, say corn, that they might produce. You may have heard about opposition to the Plan Puebla Panama – a network of dams, roads and factories from Mexico to Panama. Well, that’s local people’s beef. A whole lot of “economic development” of no benefit to local folks who still haven’t been able to get the government to cede them a rural road to get their squash to market.
So strong is the free trade pull that we have to physically restrain ourselves from simply outfitting our houses with cheap goods from Walmart – called Urreape here. Even friends in the Mexican social movement, responding to our queries about where to buy mattresses and kitchenware, point us towards the beast. One of a couple of Walmart stores sits across from the Plaza del Valle. So abundant are the US chain stores there that one new Mexican friend remarked that you can go to America right here in Oaxaca….and without a visa. (We did discover by the way that in Ciudad Juarez, some folks can obtain “shopping visas” and in that way, cross the border to the U.S., drop their money in our stores, and shlep it back to Mexico. You can’t live in the U.S., but you can shop!)
How much longer can Mexican small business hold on in the face of this globalized trade? One can only imagine that 50 years hence, a far smaller number of Mexican enterprises will live in the shadow of a few powerful US chains. I pray that I’m wrong but I fear that even our dear Obama has the interests of those retail giants at heart rather than the hundreds of thousands of displaced Mexican merchants and farmers.
By Daniel
There are parallel highways in Mexico – the free “libre” and the tollway “cuota”. The pleasure of the untrafficked, high speed travel is slightly diminished by the cost – as much as $11 per toll, or in a good driving day, $60 US.
With kids anxious to not spend extra days in the car, one can’t squawk too much about the tolls. At least the roads are speedy. Part of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, has been the construction of superhighways to move freely traded goods north and south. Truly, it’s remarkable infrastructure.
Who does squawk about these toll roads, and with reason, are Mexican common people who 1) cannot afford the tolls to travel on them; 2) whose lands are taken to build the roads and whose communities suffer the subsequent environmental damage; and 3) who watch the 18 wheelers inundate their markets with imported goods and cause to plummet, the prices of goods, say corn, that they might produce. You may have heard about opposition to the Plan Puebla Panama – a network of dams, roads and factories from Mexico to Panama. Well, that’s local people’s beef. A whole lot of “economic development” of no benefit to local folks who still haven’t been able to get the government to cede them a rural road to get their squash to market.
So strong is the free trade pull that we have to physically restrain ourselves from simply outfitting our houses with cheap goods from Walmart – called Urreape here. Even friends in the Mexican social movement, responding to our queries about where to buy mattresses and kitchenware, point us towards the beast. One of a couple of Walmart stores sits across from the Plaza del Valle. So abundant are the US chain stores there that one new Mexican friend remarked that you can go to America right here in Oaxaca….and without a visa. (We did discover by the way that in Ciudad Juarez, some folks can obtain “shopping visas” and in that way, cross the border to the U.S., drop their money in our stores, and shlep it back to Mexico. You can’t live in the U.S., but you can shop!)
How much longer can Mexican small business hold on in the face of this globalized trade? One can only imagine that 50 years hence, a far smaller number of Mexican enterprises will live in the shadow of a few powerful US chains. I pray that I’m wrong but I fear that even our dear Obama has the interests of those retail giants at heart rather than the hundreds of thousands of displaced Mexican merchants and farmers.
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