An­na-Lisa Paul

The new traf­fic plan for west Port-of-Spain has been de­scribed as "well re­ceived by the pub­lic." How­ev­er, po­lice have said, "There were a few hic­cups, as is the case with any new plan." Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Sgt Wayne Mys­tar said chal­lenges arose af­ter "some mo­torists at­tempt­ed to go up the wrong streets."

Mys­tar said while there were po­lice on the spot to point them in the right di­rec­tion, "the main is­sue is for mo­torists to get them­selves ac­cli­ma­tised to the new sys­tem." The new traf­fic plan in­clud­ed mak­ing ma­jor road­ways such as Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Tra­garete Road and the West­ern Main Road in­to one-way routes.

Asked to com­ment on mixed re­ac­tions from road users, Mys­tar ap­pealed to dri­vers to "get fa­mil­iar with the new sys­tem and to pay at­ten­tion to the sig­nage." Asked if po­lice would main­tain a vis­i­ble pres­ence and be le­nient to­wards dri­vers who make il­le­gal turns, Mys­tar said, "Of­fi­cers will con­tin­ue to be out in their num­bers this week to as­sist in en­sur­ing the new route func­tions prop­er­ly and there are no prob­lems.

"Al­though of­fi­cers were quite cor­dial in ad­vis­ing mo­torists to get back on the right track and it was done in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner, there was some form of le­nien­cy, but this will not con­tin­ue in­def­i­nite­ly. "We are ask­ing mo­torists to be aware of the new route, signs and mark­ings on the road, and do the re­spon­si­ble thing, whether some­one is watch­ing or not."