Derek Achong

The traf­fic woes first ex­pe­ri­enced with the in­tro­duc­tion of Port-of-Spain's new traf­fic plan have eased con­sid­er­ably. Yes­ter­day, when a news team from the T&T Guardian drove on Tra­garete Road, a route known for its af­ter­noon con­ges­tion, traf­fic flow had im­proved as com­pared to ear­li­er this week. Around 5 pm, traf­fic war­dens were stand­ing at every ma­jor in­ter­sec­tion to di­rect con­fused dri­vers in ac­cor­dance with new reg­u­la­tions. Sev­er­al dri­vers, who spoke briefly with the T&T Guardian as they made their way home, said they were pleased with the traf­fic plan but com­plained some oth­er dri­vers were not aware of the changes. One dri­ver point­ed out the new plan would be tru­ly test­ed when the new school term opens in Sep­tem­ber. The con­tro­ver­sial plan was im­ple­ment­ed on Mon­day by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

Po­lice have placed bar­ri­ers at the Roxy Round­about, which have ef­fec­tive­ly stopped it func­tion­ing as a round­about. Dri­vers head­ing east can­not turn south on­to Dami­an Street, Wood­brook, while dri­vers head­ing west are barred from us­ing the round­about to reach St Clair Av­enue. The ad­di­tion now al­lows the free flow of traf­fic on both lanes of Tra­garete Road. The T&T Guardian was told yes­ter­day's lat­est ad­just­ment to the plan was in re­sponse to dif­fi­cul­ties ex­pe­ri­enced by dri­vers at the round­about ear­li­er this week. Po­lice at the round­about were un­able to say if the re­stric­tions were to be a per­ma­nent fix­ture or a tem­po­rary ex­per­i­ment. Traf­fic lights are ex­pect­ed to be in­stalled at the round­about next week.