Since 1992, I have had the privilege of being able to travel all over Turkey, from Edirne to Hakkari, and from Tekirdağ to Hopa. In all that time, I've never had access to a private car, relying entirely on public transport to get me about. It's true that occasionally I have been forced to resort to hitching out to really remote archaeological sites, or have had to stretch the definition of public transport to include taxis. But the general point remains valid: I have been able to get everywhere I wanted to go without having wheels of my own, which means, I think, that when I say that Turkey has one of the best public transport systems in the world, I'm in a stronger position than most people to know what I'm talking about.Recently, however, I've started to notice a few cracks opening up in the system. When the government first started building new out-of-town bus stations in the late 1990s, I was all in favor of the idea. It seemed to make perfect sense that cumbersome, pollution-creating vehicles should be kept away from city centers, and, besides, the new bus stations were so much better designed, as anyone will confirm who remembers the terrifying Topkapı bus terminal in İstanbul that preceded Esenler.
The first new bus terminals were built out of town but not in the depths of the countryside. Now, however, they are being parked in the middle of nowhere so that the town can spread towards them, rather like children's dresses bought a size too big so that they can grow into them. This is all very well on town-planning grounds but doesn't make much sense for bus users. In the past, you could sometimes end a journey with a brisk walk to the town center from the terminal (I'm thinking of Antakya, Sinop and Kalkan in particular). Now the journey from the terminal into the town center can take almost as long as the journey to the terminal from the original starting point as, for example, in Bursa where the otogar (bus station) is so far from the town center that it can take more than an hour to complete the journey.
Implicit in the decision to move the terminals out of the town centers was the understanding that onward transport would be provided by free servis (service) buses. However, some towns, including Bursa, Konya and Safranbolu, have opted out of that arrangement, leaving strangers to find their own way to the center, often encumbered with heavy luggage. The sheer remoteness of the new terminals means that only those with deep pockets can jump straight into a taxi because of the risk that the bill will far exceed the cost of the original bus fare. It goes without saying that you rarely arrive at the otogar to find the servis bus waiting, thereby adding pointless time to the journey.
Does it matter? Of course it does, because global warming means that as many of us as possible should be opting to use public transport, which will only happen if bus journeys are as comfortable and convenient as those that could be made in a private car.
Charlotte McPherson is away. Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
