Priority Bus Route gets $10M light-up

THE Priority Bus Route (PBR) will get lighting along its entire length at a total cost of $10.3 million. The Tobago airbridge is operating smoothly, but government is continuing to develop a long-term plan to solve its problems. Speaking at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Works and Transport Minister Franklin Khan recalled that the stretch from Tunapuna to Arima of the PBR was never lit up on completion of phase two of the Port-of-Spain transit hub between 1987 and 1989 and this was “a project long overdue.”

Khan said funding for that project would be included in the 2004/2005 Budget, and it would begin in the next two months. The minister also said funding for lighting the PBR from Arima to St Augustine ($8.7 million) and from St Augustine to City Gate in Port-of-Spain ($140,000) has been factored into these total funds. He then revealed that travel on the Tobago airbridge has eased considerably with the arrival of the first ATR aircraft (64 seat capacity) from Simba Airlines of Holland. This aircraft and the 120-seat DC-9 leased from JAT Airlines in Britain, have greatly assisted the services provided by Tobago Express. Khan said the second Simba ATR plane will arrive in Trinidad and Tobago on September 15. The minister said Cabinet had originally decided to release the DC-9 aircraft, once the second Simba plane arrives.

However, government has decided to keep the DC-9 for another month and use it to help devise a long-term solution for the Tobago airbridge. Khan said the airbridge must have a load factor capacity of 75 percent to be efficient. He declined to answer questions about the Tobago seabridge, saying that Tobago’s Chief Secretary Orville London would make a statement on that issue later in the day.