Highway expansion needed

Highway Improvements Continued

There is an urgent need to construct the extension of the Solomon Hochoy Highway from Golconda to Point Fortin. This highway, with all its interchanges and connector roads, has already been designed. In the immediate term, the South Trunk Road will be dualled to a four lane highway from Gulf City to St. Mary’s Junction in South Oropouche.

The connector road will be built from St Mary’s Junction to the Fyzabad and Siparia Interchange. The Point Fortin highway will then be built from the Fyzab and Siparia Interchange. The first phase of the Point Fortin Highway will thus be from Point Fortin to the Fyzabad / Siparia Interchange, and the Connector Road will be built to the widened South Trunk Road.

Other major road projects to be immediately undertaken include:

•Construction of the two lanes of the northbound carriageway of the Diego Martin Highway between Victoria Gardens and Acton Court.

•Motorists travelling eastbound on the Diego Martin Highway who wish to turn westbound on the Western Main Road face extreme danger in trying to cross several lanes of motorists either leaving the Western Main Road onto the Diego Martin Highway towards Victoria Gardens, or continuing along the Western Main Road towards Westmoorings. A safer option has to be provided. This may require a more appropriate interchange to facilitate south-to-west movement.

• Permitting exits from the Audrey Jeffers highway eastbound along the Mucurapo Road in front of the old gas station, in order to favour those who wish to make a turn-around on the highway to go west, such as at Peake’s. A stop-bar will facilitate the motorists exiting on Mucurapo Road in front of the old gas station, who wish to turn right to enter the highway.

• Dualling of the San Fernando Bypass between Tarouba Link Road and Marabella Roundabout.

Traffic Safety Enforcement

Data from the Central Statistical Office show that 60 percent of all fatal traffic accidents occur between 6 pm and 6 am.

Also, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays together account for 50 percent of all fatal traffic accidents. These occur primarily on the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway (CRH), the Solomon Hochoy Highway (SHH), and the Eastern Main Road (EMR) on the Valencia Stretch.

The police should be encouraged to patrol these and other roads during the night-time and early morning hours.

Legislation should be passed to have the police speed trap mechanisms change from the primitive method of three men in the bush to modern speed gun enforcement technology. There is need for serious consideration of a separate agency dedicated to traffic monitoring, enforcement and parking.

Traffic Management

within Urban Centres

All road users should acknowledge that the traffic situation has reached crisis proportions, and the high vehicle volumes on the roads coupled with the inability to increase the capacity of roadways within urban centres have exacerbated the problem.

Therefore, motorists stopping on the roads to do things that would have been considered innocuous in years gone by, such as, buying newspapers, vegetables or doubles, or vans delivering bread, or trucks offloading cement, now severely add to the delays experienced these days. The following should be considered for urban centres:

(a) There would be no stopping on main roads in urban centres 50 metres before or after intersections.

(b) Specially designated stopping bays for transit vehicles would be painted along specific routes.

(c) Pedestrian priority and markings would be promoted.

(d) A system of dedicated traffic and parking wardens would be instituted for ticketing offenders of the strategies described above. This would require legislative approval. These wardens would operate in urban areas on foot and bicycles.

(e) Taxis and maxi-taxis occupying stands in urban areas have long out-grown the capability of holding their numbers required, resulting in spill-over, and tremendous reducing in the traffic-carrying capacity of the roadway. This cannot be sustained. Any plan for public transport must provide off-street facilities in a reorganised fashion. Planning for this must begin immediately.

This component would be handled by the Transit Authority.

(f) Loading and off-loading by commercial vehicles on the main routes in urban centres cannot be permitted, especially during peak period. Investigations would be conducted to limit these activities to between 6 pm and 6 am. Crime and security concerns would obviously feature here.

Environmental Issues

The main environmental issues are related to the generation of carbon dioxide, air pollutant emissions and noise. Transport is one of the most difficult sectors to manage in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, which is a major contributor to climate change. Climate change is causing dramatic shifts in the global eco-system and urgent action is required to keep impacts to a manageable level. It is important to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It is proposed that the Transit Authority develop measures to improve the environmental performance of their public transport vehicles by procuring cleaner vehicles and offering economic incentives to private operators.

A Comment on the Rapid Rail

In January 2006 the current administration announced that their primary strategy to relieve traffic congestion and reduce traffic delays was to implement rapid rail transit between Diego Martin and Arima, and between Port of Spain and San Fernando at a likely cost of between $116 and $136 million per kilometre of railway line.

According to the experts, rapid rail is the highest category of transit service. So they have jumped from ground zero, with no organisation, management, or regulation of public transport, and without any public understanding of the justification, arrived at the highest class of transit, without any explanation of its integration into the transportation sector, or its likely effectiveness.

Our commuters have problems now that cannot wait for years. Further, rapid rail cannot connect all communities and up to now most still do not have access to regular, dependable public transport, and public transport is made increasing more difficult by the traffic congestion caused by an extremely high automobile-driven population.

Therefore why jump to such a high level of sophistication and technology when you have not corrected the fundamentals? Underlying the current approach to project development is the assumption is that it is the product rather than the process which is indicative of a country’s development.

The ideas proposed here do not require that we design our transport system around any particular technology, but around the needs of the customer.

There must be justification and prioritisation with respect to investment in transport and infrastructure on the basis of maximisation of net social benefits.