A SAN FERNANDO CITY GATE?

Unlike the Breakfast Shed vendors, who sought legal advice before eventually agreeing to being relocated, the maxi taxi and conventional taxi operators moved on Thursday afternoon. Nonetheless, they inconvenienced scores of commuters through parking up their vehicles at King's Wharf, while they staged a placard demonstration and refused to ply their taxis for hire until mid-afternoon. The authorities plan constructing a multi-million dollar Government administration complex at the former Chancery Lane car park.

While it is in the interest of not only the taxi drivers and passengers but the San Fernando City Corporation and the Police as well for the drivers to have a designated area from which they can operate and commuters can go for transport, rather than seek to use any place in the Borough likely to have passenger traffic, an alternative site was found for them. In turn, King's Wharf has grown into a virtual transport hub beginning with the siting there of a bus terminus in October, 1945 first by the now defunct Trinidad Government Railways and continued by the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) from 1966.

What the authorities have done, in effect, is to create a tacit City Gate in San Fernando. The difference between the original City Gate at South Quay in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando's "City Gate", however, is that while the original City Gate accommodates only maxi taxis and PTSC buses, the new southern transport hub at King's Wharf will house conventional taxis as well. It provides a convenient transfer point for commuters travelling from Siparia, La Brea, Point Fortin, Penal, Fyzabad and other southern routes to Port-of-Spain and points in between, to link up with both PTSC buses at King's Wharf and maxi taxis that are travelling North. The reverse is also true with commuters travelling by buses and maxi taxis from North and Central Trinidad to points beyond San Fernando transferring to either buses or maxis to arrive at their destinations.

The authorities should establish a covered area at King's Wharf, San Fernando, complete with ample seating accommodation and wash rooms, to facilitate commuters making connections there. This would provide shelter from the sun and rain for transit and other passengers and be a marketing plus for Public Transport Service Corporation buses as well as maxi taxis and conventional taxis. Ultimately, it may encourage persons to leave their cars at home and travel by buses and/or other forms of paid transport. Any provision of shelter from the elements will be a public relations plus for the Ministry of Works and Transport as no such facilities existed at the Chancery Lane car park.

Government, as in the case of Port-of-Spain's City Gate, should move to have part of the costs of operating the facility, borne by maxi taxi and conventional taxi operators by charging a fee for its use. In turn, Public Transport Service Corporation passenger receipts should increase making the bus service less of a financial burden on taxpayers.

Meanwhile, there were no signed contracts held by any of the maxi taxi or taxi drivers either to operate from the stands or to occupy specifically marked out sites in the car park. Instead, any of the parking areas could be taken up by any maxi taxi or taxi operator, whether he/she had been plying the various routes for several years or for the first time on Thursday. The Chancery Lane car park was on a first come first occupy basis. Maxi taxi and conventional taxi operators of King's Wharf, once needed facilities are in place, should be required to enter into contracts which in the long term will provide them with the security they did not have at the Chancery Lane car park and a more structured arrangement.