ROWLEY’S URBAN MINDSET – AND THE TRAFFIC CRISIS

IN 1974, the year I entered the media industry, I wrote an article on road traffic chaos.

I reported on the advice of experts on two measures that could bring relief for North-South and other distressed motorists while roads and highways are constructed.

One was flexitime, a system of staggered working hours for employees who are not required to be at their posts within the regulation 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The other was decentralisation, the process of setting up public service offices in areas outside of Port of Spain, to avoid the daily clutter of traffic.

A colleague at the daily newspaper looked at my article and commented: “You writing on that old issue again?!”

Those proposed solutions were in public discussion for several years, since traffic woes were a worsening national nightmare.

Over the past half century, there have been no moves to implement flexitime, although this policy has had positive effect in several countries.

There have been limited efforts at decentralisation, with some services now available at other urban centres.

The administration of Kamla Persad-Bissessar constructed a ministry head office on the outskirts of Chaguanas, which was occupied by the government of Dr. Keith Rowley.

But Port of Spain remains the concentrated meeting point of official State business, commerce, the main port, media, and other primary economic and administrative activities.

There is an enormous toll on commuters who endure the daily grind to earn a living.

A report of a United Nations agency said that some 793 hours – or 16 hours a week – are lost by the average worker on the day-to-day commute.

The traffic congestion burdens the economy by 1,37 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, and costs the average commuter more than $1,000 a month in additional fuel costs of taxi or bus fares.

What the survey does not indicate is the horrendous impact on the tens of thousands of people who endure the daily snarl, the withering effect on their physical and mental state and their family and community life.

Some workers leave eastern or southern communities before dawn to get to their city workplace for 8 a.m.

In some cases, children do their homework in the backseat and get home asleep or drowsy.

The Rowley Government has shown by words and action that it is heavily Port of Spain-centric, and this urban focus has been to the detriment of outlying districts.

Even as the city has fallen into decay and neglect, the Prime Minister speaks of its revitalisation, and being “potentially vibrant and full of economic opportunities in a bright future…”

He has a patently urban mindset.

It is difficult to find many who share Rowley’s analysis and positive prospects for Port of Spain, our fast-declining capital city.

His singular focus on the capital city has excluded attention to the deteriorating traffic epidemic, such as the Port of Spain-San Fernando crisis.

The Works and Transport Ministry has belatedly undertaken a widening of a limited area of the thoroughfare, and even that has been delayed.

There are reports of sub-standard work and claims that the launch has been put off to the eve of the upcoming general election.

The expanded highway would bring partial relief for frustrated motorists, but will push the bottleneck a few metres off.

Highway hell is a national crisis, one that is ignored by an administration that is both insensitive to the urgent situation and incapable of implementing solutions.

Fifty years old, there is still no consideration of flexitime and decentralisation.