An 11-year-old boy left stranded in the snow after failing to pay a bus ticket inflated for Italy’s Winter Olympics will take part in Friday’s opening ceremony, a spokesperson said.
Riccardo had boarded the bus home from school last week in the Cortina d’Ampezzo region with a €2.50 ticket, the usual fare.
But the operating company had raised the fare to €10 ahead of the Milan-Cortina Games, which run from 6 February until 22 February, and he had to get off.
The story made headlines in Italy and beyond and the bus driver apologised, saying he made a “serious mistake”.
The Games organising committee has offered Riccardo a role in Friday’s opening ceremony at Milan’s San Siro stadium to try to make it up to him.
“He will play a symbolic role during the opening ceremony,” a spokesperson confirmed, while noting that the role still needed to be defined.
Local authorities also said they would start offering discounts on bus prices for poorer local residents.
That’s utterly bizarre. I can see why some tosser would come up with the idea of jacking up the prices, but my experience of most major events like the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games is that most transport is either included in your ticket, or just outright free.
Even when I’ve been living close to an event, I’ve not had the bad experience of paying inflated prices - rather just benefitted from the free shuttle buses that float about instead.
That’s some next level shithousery by that bus firm.
This was just his regular ride home from school, too. Not a special Olympics shuttle bus
Just some bus company decided to start price gouging for the Olympics. A once in a lifetime opportunity, you can’t expect them to let that go by.
America doesn’t get a lot right, but paying for the bus to get home from school? That’s ridiculous.
Parents pay for the bus, just not on a per-ride basis.
Are you talking about America or Italy? Because in America bussing is generally provided by the school and run by the school or a contractor.
I think they’re saying it’s worse than America in this one way
Not in our district, school buses are free in public school. Private school would probably have a fee paid along with tuition.
But this Milan situation is apparently a city bus, and he pays cash rather than having a bus pass like our kids can get for Metro buses. (Although 11 is a little young imho, my kids didn’t get one until middle school. )
I think this varies by school district/state. Pretty sure I remember a per semester bus charge.
Yes, school districts do vary.