The plan to trans­form Ari­api­ta Av­enue in­to a one-way route is un­der re­view by the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch but it may not be a work­able so­lu­tion to ease con­ges­tion in the out­skirts of Port-of-Spain. Act­ing Se­nior Supt in charge of the unit, Di­anand Naipaul, called for greater con­sul­ta­tion be­fore Gov­ern­ment reached a fi­nal de­ci­sion. The plan is ex­pect­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed on Ju­ly 1. Oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers in the unit have la­belled the plan a "to­tal dis­as­ter." The biggest change will be Ari­api­ta Av­enue one-way, go­ing west, while Tra­garete Road will on­ly al­low east­bound traf­fic. The new mea­sures are be­ing in­tro­duced on a tri­al ba­sis for three months in the first in­stance. "We have not re­ject­ed the plan. It is un­der re­view and we are care­ful­ly study­ing it. But we know it can­not work," Naipaul said yes­ter­day.

Say­ing the lay­out of Wood­brook was not de­signed to ac­com­mo­date such a plan, Naipaul added: "While the plan cit­ed a main artery, there are two ar­ter­ies... Tra­garete Road and Ari­api­ta Av­enue, plus Wright­son Road." Naipaul al­so lev­elled blame on the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, which he said failed to in­ter­vene crit­i­cal­ly. He said: "Every house along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, which is a res­i­den­tial area, has been re­duced or con­vert­ed to a com­mer­cial busi­ness that does not pro­vide park­ing. "So peo­ple are park­ing on both sides of the road to go to these busi­ness­places, so where are the peo­ple who want to tra­verse the road sup­posed to go?" Naipaul asked.

He urged that dis­cus­sions be held with the di­vi­sion and with Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing. "We need to treat with this is­sue of giv­ing ap­provals to set up com­mer­cial en­ti­ties in res­i­den­tial ar­eas," Naipaul added. The plan, he be­lieved, would not re­al­ly af­fect dri­vers so much as busi­ness­es. "This does not have an im­pact on the mo­tor­ing pub­lic. This has an im­pact more so on trans­port and ser­vices, PTSC, taxis, maxi taxis," he said. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions, Jack Ewats­ki, said he was not ful­ly aware of the to­tal plan and could not make a com­ment. He as­sured, how­ev­er, that there would be stake­hold­er meet­ings and all views and con­cerns would be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.