TT population too big

The Editor: We are told that there is a national transportation plan in the making. This apparently will lead to billions of petrodollars being spent on monorails, overpasses and new highways. Then we are told that there’s no way the government can keep up with the additional cars being introduced onto our roads, so maybe some subtraction from personal freedoms must be made to limit additional vehicles. Nowhere do I hear that the real problem, which is self-evident, is too many people for a small island. Lets just keep on multiplying irresponsibly, and by the way, lets bring in more crowds through CSME economic migration, maybe FTAA, and workers right now to build all these white elephants projects!

Don’t try to park anywhere because the multi-storied parks at Campus Plaza and Chancery Lane will have just a few less places than the number of new employees to be housed. Customers can catch a maxi or walk. And what about the type of construction in progress? How does this allow for all these extra crowds? Look carefully at all those UDECOTT images and bMobile adverts of the waterfront project in Port-of-Spain. (You can’t get a look at official plans or a model to see what’s being done with our money, because there aren’t any available to the public). Just where the Beetham Highway, South Quay, and Brian Lara (Independence Square) converge is the narrowest bit of land before you fall into the sea.

That’s where all these highway interchanges and overpasses are planned to bring the traffic even quicker than the present gridlock. It looks like its going to be the mother of all bottlenecks, and a super overpass will be needed. But no! That’s where we are building the showpiece “Waterfront Project” — so there won’t be any room for overpasses and feeders. In fact the new breakfast shed is already there blocking all hope of the obviously-needed move of the waterfront seaward and creation of infill land out to sea. That’s how Port-of-Spain has always expanded in the past, and has never been needed more than now. We’ll have plenty of time to admire the back of our new Waterfront Project from our stationary vehicles in the gridlock.

Reg Potter
Glencoe