A great deal has been written and said about the ongoing problem of daily transportation into our capital city from the east and south of the island, the daily traffic jams and frustration being suffered by commuters, and the massive waste of time and loss of productivity.
Many very expensive solutions have been offered, from a so-called Rapid Rail train system, as well as several other rail-based solutions, both at ground level and elevated. Other suggestions have included an enhanced bus system with dedicated bus lanes on the highways. To date, however, very little real progress has been made towards solving this serious national problem.
I would like to suggest that there is a much simpler solution to this traffic problem, at a much lower cost than the alternatives proposed. The so-called Priority Bus Route could handle a vastly increased volume of traffic if it weren’t for all the junctions and traffic lights along its length.
If overpasses were built at every junction, such that traffic could flow on the Bus Route unhindered from Arima to Port-of-Spain, I would guess that the carrying capacity of this arterial road could be increased by a factor of ten or more. While the cost of these overpasses would be considerable, it would be orders of magnitude less than any kind of new rail system.
With these overpasses in place, a major traffic hub, including a massive car park could be built at Champs Fleurs, where there is easy highway access from both east and south. This hub could be the terminus for taxis and maxi-taxis from all over the country, while commuters could also park there.
From there, commuters could be in town in less than five minutes, with a large number of buses being dedicated to the Champs Fleurs to Port-of-Spain shuttle. The use of the Champs Fleurs hub could also be encouraged by banning on-street parking in the city—a measure long overdue.
We need to fix this massive traffic problem right now, not in ten years’ time.
Gary N Voss