Shal­iza Has­sanali

Gov­ern­ment has scrapped the west Port-of-Spain ex­per­i­men­tal traf­fic scheme and will re­vert to the old arrange­ment when school re­opens on Sep­tem­ber 3. The scheme, which was im­ple­ment­ed on Ju­ly 16, was sup­posed to con­tin­ue on a tri­al ba­sis for three months. How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture post­ed a state­ment on its web­site yes­ter­day ad­vis­ing of the de­ci­sion to call a halt to the plan.

The min­istry said "the neg­a­tive side ef­fects out­weigh the ben­e­fits that were gained" from the ex­per­i­men­tal plan which saw traf­fic on ma­jor road­ways such as Tra­garete Road, West­ern Main Road and Ari­api­ta Av­enue changed to one-way. It was re­port­ed that close to $1.5 mil­lion was spent on road traf­fic signs and traf­fic lights.

The plan caused up­heaval in many sec­tions of the Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty. Busi­ness own­ers com­plained about loss of sales, while res­i­dents, com­muters and pedes­tri­ans protest­ed and com­mu­ni­ty groups signed pe­ti­tions. The plan was de­vised and im­ple­ment­ed by then min­is­ter of works and in­fra­struc­ture Jack Warn­er in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing to ease traf­fic con­ges­tion and of park­ing prob­lems in Wood­brook and St James.

Nu­mer­ous calls to Warn­er's mo­bile phone went unan­swered yes­ter­day. Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Em­manuel George al­so could not be reached. The min­istry said it would con­tin­ue to re­view the traf­fic arrange­ment in west Port-of-Spain to de­ter­mine what fur­ther ac­tions need to be tak­en to re­lieve con­ges­tion. With the re­in­state­ment of the for­mer traf­fic arrange­ments in St James, Wood­brook and New­town, en­force­ment of all ap­plic­a­ble park­ing re­stric­tions will re­sume.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Lee Sing said he had read the no­tice on­line around 5 pm. He said he be­lieved the de­ci­sion was a di­ver­sion. "I be­lieve that all the ac­tiv­i­ties of the last 96 hours rep­re­sent a di­ver­sion. Of what? I can't say but it doesn't sit well." Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Lee Sing paused to an­swer a call from George who told him of the de­ci­sion. That call last­ed less than a minute.

"I was not con­sult­ed but this is the na­ture of this Gov­ern­ment. One day they ac­cuse you of en­trap­ment then the next day it is full dis­re­spect," Lee Sing said. He said re­vert­ing to the orig­i­nal plan would mean that all the traf­fic lights which had to be in­stalled from Ju­ly 16 and be­yond will now have be re­moved.

"I thought we made a quan­tum leap from con­ges­tion and grid­lock which al­lowed for the smooth en­try to and from Port-of-Spain but it is un­for­tu­nate that those who thought the plan was suc­cess­ful re­mained silent. I am not sur­prised at this move. "The coun­try will have to live with the de­ci­sions of this Gov­ern­ment which are not based on sound think­ing."

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) Gre­go­ry Aboud said cer­tain as­pects of the plan could have been amend­ed. "The fact is the great ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple who used to do busi­ness in St James and in Wood­brook, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the evenings, have had their con­fi­dence in those dis­tricts shak­en by the wreck­ing of ve­hi­cles and that prob­a­bly is one of the fac­tors cre­at­ing hard­ship for busi­ness peo­ple in those two dis­tricts," Aboud said.