Dear Mr Min­is­ter of Trans­port: Let me help you with your fea­si­bil­i­ty study for free. It is not of­ten I agree with Colm Im­bert but I have to on this one. Judg­ing from the var­i­ous news­pa­pers re­ports, it seems your plans are well ad­vanced. I ask you just like I asked Mr Im­bert be­fore you, to ex­plain the ben­e­fit of this ven­ture to the maxi taxis, taxis, 'PH' and bus dri­vers who ply the route. Ex­plain to us in your stud­ies, how many peo­ple trav­el to Port-of-Spain on a morn­ing and what time is the heav­i­est pe­ri­od. What cost ben­e­fit will it have to the peo­ple men­tioned above? What ef­fect on their liveli­hood will it have? What is the pro­posed cost of this rapid rail? Will it be diesel or elec­tric? Nat­ur­al gas, maybe? How will we pay for it? How many years will it take to pay it off, as­sum­ing your pas­sen­ger num­bers are cor­rect? Did we talk about the cost to con­struct an over­head rail­way? Well that is an­oth­er whole ball­game.

How many projects have the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der­tak­en that have come in at or un­der bud­get and on time? We are still await­ing the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um. That should be up for the Guin­ness Book of Records soon. There are a lot of ques­tions to be asked and an­swered be­fore you all sign off on this rapid rail. Have you ever thought of open­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route to all traf­fic from 5 am to 9 am and from 3 pm to 7 pm to all traf­fic? You need to spend some mon­ey. Okay, well widen and add a lane to the PBR.

Wazir Mo­hammed

via e-mail