The 60, the reduced flagship line to keep running

The collective service that began in 1931 has been going through a serious economic crisis for years; raises branches and only one will maintain the path of the Constitution

Chau 60, do not say I did not take into account, Andrés Calamaro sings in his song "Qué ritmo triste", released in 2000 on the album
The salmon. Nearly twenty years later, the most emblematic bus line in Buenos Aires bids farewell to 12 routes: from 19 to 19.

The route Constitucion-Tigre-Escobar, engraved on the posters of the collectives and in the spirit of the inhabitants, will cease to exist as such: in the next two months and according to the plan of society, the only branch that will reach the Constitution will be the A, which will link San Isidro to Barracas. With this new provision, the line will continue to connect the northern area of ​​the conurbation of Buenos Aires to the capital, but it will circulate much less for the latter (most of the new branches will only reach Barrancas de Belgrano).

In the last year alone, line 60 made more than thirty million trips (based on the SUBE chart badysis), or about 82,000 per day. It was the tenth pbadenger transport company in 2018 in the metropolitan area of ​​Buenos Aires. Long before, he was number one.

The most prosperous lines of Buenos Aires began to decline in the 90s: with the bankruptcy of its insurance company, it contracted a debt of 500 million pesos which resulted in an appeal to the creditors and to the current management of the DOTA group.

In a dialogue with Marcelo Longobardi, the current president of Monsa, Marcelo Paciutto, explained that the company is now in deficit and that the change will make it "competitive". Also discarded any type of staff reduction.

"Whoever has never adopted this course of action has not lived in this country," said Juan Carlos González, president of the Museo del Colectivo Antiguo. For him, talking about the "60", is to mention a piece of our story. And his own: born in Barracas, he grew up in these collectives. As a child, he was playing in front of the Monsa garage (the company owning the line), where there were more and more units. This is also the group that brought him to school.

From the age of five, he travels alone to the Güemes School of San Telmo. "Mom accompanied me to the bus stop and bought the ticket, I sat in the first seat next to the driver and my grandmother was waiting at the stop from school.

González calls the 60th "La Gloriosa" and has reasons to justify it: "It was the flagship line of the Argentine collective, an outstanding line, in the 60's, they called it the International because that she left you everywhere, apart from the one who invented the ticket and one of the first to implement the differential service, it was prosperous until the debacle began in 2000. "

"The Callao Avenue, Congress, Palermo, Obelisk, Rivadavia Hospital, Saavedra Bridge, Tribunals, Tiger, 60 have gone anywhere!", Roberto Enumere Da Cruz, 73, son of one of the founders of the line.

He started working in the company in 1964 as an administrative employee in the insurance section. I was 19 years old. He became a member of the board of directors and worked there until his retirement: "I've been mourning the company since I was born." I remember my father driving in the direction of Tigre, he was wearing blue cuffs, I was standing on the march at the time, the collective There were about twelve seats and there was a door on both sides. "His son, Fernando, is 45 years old and currently works for the company.

Line 60 entered into service on October 17, 1931, at the hands of three shareholders – Da Cruz, Capalbo and Delgado Varela – who owned cars and started a small company. "In the middle of the 30th crisis, the taxis were empty because nobody could pay for the service, so the drivers began to set up fixed routes carrying several people (the cars had eight seats) and stopped at Constitución. , a peso in Congress, they filled the taxi and left, "says Roberto. Thus began the first lines of the collective Buenos Aires.

At first, it did not work with the number 60, but with the 31 times where the numbering was not regulated, which happened four years later with the official rating-. The first route that then traveled between Plaza Constitución and the intersection of Centenario Avenue and Uruguay Street, on the border of San Isidro and San Fernando, where today is a viaduct .

The first units were painted yellow and brown. There are different versions of the number of groups with which the service was launched: depending on the source, it can be 10, 15 or 18 cars. The truth is that they have grown exponentially, because at December 31, 1936, the fleet had 110 units.

According to Alejandro Scapartini, historian and curator of the site
BusArg.comInitially, the line had a permit from the municipality of San Isidro, but not from Vicente López; so she traveled only through this part, but she did not lift or leave pbadengers.

More than 80 years later, the municipality of San Isidro today refuses the installation of an alternative terminal in the public park of its port.

Another curiosity saves the author: the 60 arrived in San Fernando at the end of 1931, before the pressure exerted by the brothel owners in the area, who needed a means of transport to facilitate the Access of customers and workers.

In 1933, it was transformed into a Component Society, a regular figure of pbadenger transport, and was renamed shortly after Collective Micro Ómnibus Norte Society. More than twenty years later, in 1953, the former limited liability company (SRL) became a Sociedad Anónima (SA). This is so that the famous Monsa acronyms have been configured.

In 1932, the 1960s began to arrive at the Tigre Hotel, the legendary entertainment venue of the aristocracy of that era, which operated between 1890 and 1939 (and where is today the Tigre Deliberation Council). In 1934, the province of Buenos Aires granted him the concession to join Plaza Constitución with the Tigre Hotel.

According to Scarpatini, the celebrity was fueled by anecdotes going beyond the commercial problem, such as the help given during the Spanish Civil War: "In 1938, the Spanish community launched a campaign to obtain ambulances and give them In the Republican Army, collectives as employees of the 60 organized a collection and, in May, gave the ambbadador five thousand pesos, and they used the bodywork of a collective to build an ambulance, although we have no record of his departure for Spain.

Roberto Da Cruz points out that, in the mid-1940s, Group 60 offered services every two minutes and worked 24 hours a day. At that time, the line began to be configured as a Buenos Aires star. There are many artistic expressions that reflect the collective's influence in the city's panorama. Perhaps the most famous, the phrase: "I need 60, I need it," repeats Jorge Porcel in one of his sketches. "So, in every novel or movie, whenever a collective appeared, it was a 60: it was the synonym of a collective," says Fernando Fernando.

Over time, the line has been able to expand and add successive extensions of routes, with the addition of new terminals, such as Rincon de Milberg, Núñez, Escobar, Maschwitz Engineer and the route of the extinct line 38.

Fangio, driver

At the inauguration of the service rendered in Zárate, in 1962, the Formula 1 rider, Juan Manuel Fangio. "It was an important thing, we were waiting for the mayor, there were 20 long-distance vehicles, 0 kilometers with reclining seats, we left Buenos Aires in a caravan, the first having been driven by the five-time world champion." But Fangio drove a 60 for a short time: "He's gone from here, made it three blocks and then the official driver took it," Norberto says.

In the 80s, the company had 366 units. In the 90s began the decline. "In 1996, following the bankruptcy of the Cooperativa de Seguros Belgrano, we had more than 200 lawsuits and a debt of 500 million pesos, all of which continued to exist, but it was a blow." says Da Cruz. The economic crisis of 2001 did not help either. In April 2007, Monsa launched a call for creditors. Line 60 is currently managed by the DOTA group.

Fernando is saddened and preoccupied by the reduction of branches, he fears that it is accompanied by a reduction of staff: "The pbadenger is also hurting him." If the owner of an ice cream shop says that from tomorrow, he only sells dulce de leche, people can still go to another ice cream shop, but he does not want to go out. is a public service. social. "

Photos: Ricardo Pristupluk and Alejandro Guyot

Photographic edition: Fernanda Corbani