An­na-Lisa Paul

The po­lice are set to in­tro­duce mi­nor changes to this year's Car­ni­val pa­rade route in Port-of-Spain and have de­vel­oped new strate­gies to deal with law­less­ness and traf­fic grid­lock in the city dur­ing the two days of Car­ni­val .

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Ray­mond Craig an­nounced the new plan on Wednes­day at the week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

He said: "You can ex­pect safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. I al­so want to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to warn in­di­vid­u­als who want to dis­rupt it, that the po­lice will be out in full force and the law will be en­forced."

Say­ing a "mi­nor change" to the 2013 Car­ni­val route will see mas­quer­aders stay­ing away from Aber­crom­by Street, Craig said: "In­stead, we will go south along St Vin­cent Street and north along Char­lotte Street."

The pa­rade cir­cuit will not in­clude Fred­er­ick Street, as it re­mains a se­cu­ri­ty con­cern.

He said the re­main­der of the pa­rade cir­cuit will re­main the same as last year.

He added: "We have tak­en im­por­tant de­ci­sions to make Car­ni­val 2013 safer than it was in 2012 and we are con­cerned about the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all per­sons, vis­i­tors and in­di­vid­u­als, with­in our coun­try and to en­sure we have a safe and se­cure Car­ni­val."

An­oth­er ma­jor change this year will re­sult in artistes be­ing barred from per­form­ing atop mu­sic trucks as they trav­el along the pa­rade route.

Craig said: "Per­sons will not be per­mit­ted, as they some­times do, to ride on the truck. There is a con­cern from T&TEC about rais­ing wires dur­ing Car­ni­val time while they tra­verse the route."

Craig said the po­lice could not make car-pool­ing manda­to­ry and could on­ly ap­peal to the pub­lic to let good sense pre­vail so that few­er cars would come in­to Port-of-Spain, thus re­duc­ing the traf­fic grid­lock.

Asked if the sol­diers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive would in­clude the 1,000 pre­cept­ed per­son­nel an­nounced by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er on Mon­day as well as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms, Craig said:

"What I will say is that the nor­mal De­fence Force per­son­nel that op­er­at­ed all the time will be op­er­at­ing to as­sist the Po­lice Ser­vice and we do ap­pre­ci­ate their sup­port. I don't know any­thing about pre­cept."

Pa­rade of the Bands routes for Port-of-Spain

From Ana Street, Wood­brook:

East on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, on­to Park Street, south along St Vin­cent Street, east along South Quay,

north on­to Broad­way,

east along In­de­pen­dence Square South, north along Char­lotte Street,

west on­to Queen's Park East to en­ter the Sa­van­nah

Leav­ing the Sa­van­nah:

South along Vic­to­ria Av­enue, west along Tra­garete Road,

south on­to Pole-Carew Street, on­to Ana Street and then to Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

To go to Pic­cadil­ly Street (The Greens) for judg­ing:

East along In­de­pen­dence Square South, on­to Pic­cadil­ly Street (around the bridge), west on­to Park Street, north along Char­lotte Street,

west on to Queen's Park East to en­ter the Sa­van­nah.

Steel­bands wish­ing to go to Pic­cadil­ly Street for judg­ing will trav­el along the same route as the mas bands.

Car pool­ing

Craig al­so en­cour­aged peo­ple to car­pool to avoid the traf­fic grid­lock which oc­curred as thou­sands of peo­ple rush to leave Port-of-Spain af­ter the cel­e­bra­tions on Car­ni­val Tues­day.

He said park-and-ride fa­cil­i­ties had once again been im­ple­ment­ed at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, Tacarigua; Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va; the Di­vali Na­gar site, Ch­agua­nas; and the UTT cam­pus­es in San Fer­nan­do and Corinth.

Ef­forts are still un­der­way to se­cure the Aranguez Sa­van­nah as an ad­di­tion­al park­ing fa­cil­i­ty.