Vooosh

Construction of the Interchange is once again on the cards, and additional lanes are being planned for the Uriah Butler Highway (UBH). The Comprehensive National Transport Study (CNTS), currently being undertaken by Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) on behalf of the Government, has unbelievably excluded the urban centres from its scope of work, and focusses only on improving highway travel.

For example, traffic and transport planning for the cities of POS, San Fernando, and the rapidly growing Borough of Chaguanas is not being catered for in the CNTS.

So what would happen after motorists fly over the west-to-south third-level ramp of the Interchange and speed down three lanes of highway and reach Chaguanas? How will this additional traffic get through the Borough? Everyone who is accustomed to travelling on the roads in Chaguanas knows that a journey that would normally take five minutes on a Sunday afternoon, can take one hour on a weekday. Improvement in highway capacity in the absence of appropriate urban centre transport solutions will exacerbate an already horrendous traffic situation.

Traffic congestion in urban Chaguanas is a result of the intensity and types of usage by vehicular and pedestrian traffic on roads that were never built to accommodate such uses. The explosive increase in urban population and commercial activity in the fastest growing town in Trinidad and Tobago is reacting to zero improvement in the traffic-carrying ability of the roads and streets of the Borough, and frustration levels are simmering. Implementation of a comprehensive traffic and transport plan is long overdue.

Chaguanas has been subjected to several piecemeal, ad hoc traffic management schemes, usually led by the Police or the Chaguanas Borough Corpora-tion without the input of sound engineering and planning analyses. There appears to be a lack of appreciation by both public and private sector bodies for the difference between the processes of traffic management and transport planning.

Transport planning is divided into two types: long-term, comprehensive, or strategic transport planning, and short- to medium-term transport planning. The aim of comprehensive transport planning is usually to provide investment planning for the next 20 years to facilitate the mobility and accessibility of people and goods and support the broader economic, social, and environmental objectives of the country.

Short- to medium-term transport planning (say two to five years) is concerned with obtaining maximum capacity or optimal operation from existing transport system facilities. This process is also known as transport systems management (TSM), which is a continuing, monitoring and adjustment of the working of the transport system by means of relatively low-cost techniques. Traffic management is a part of TSM, and focusses on adapting the use of the existing road network to improve the movement of people and goods in a safe and efficient manner without resorting to major new construction, and typically involves the following applications: intersection improvements; turn prohibitions; one-way streets; traffic signs and markings; geometric design; road widening; access control and management; parking management; auto-restricted zones.

In other words, traffic management only concentrates on measures to alleviate the symptoms of transportation problems and not root causes, and seeks solutions in the short term. Put another way: land use activity minus transport planning equals continuous traffic management problems. This means continuing to emphasize managing traffic only rather than managing transportation.

Chaguanas, like many other urban areas, has long outgrown these occasional traffic management schemes.

There is an urgent need for specially designated stopping bays must be painted along the following routes: Chaguanas Main Road; Southern Main Road; Rudranath Capildeo Street; Endeavour Road; John Street; and, De Verteuil Street.

There is a proliferation of PH taxis in Chaguanas not seen anywhere else in the country. They provide service at just about anytime of the day or night to particularly the out-of-the-way areas such Caparo, Tabaquite, round-d-road (meaning around Greater Chaguanas, such as Enterprise, Cunupia, etc). They are there when the maxis and taxis go home, such as when heavy rain falls and there is flooding and heavy traffic congestion, and especially on a Friday evening when there is no legal public transport vehicles available. Clearly there is a huge need for the planning, management and location of public transport service and facilities in Chaguanas.

To be continued next week.

Rae Furlonge
Traffic and Transportation Engineer