MP: Guard rails, not walkover more beneficial for Sea Lots

Guard rails rather than walkovers—or both—are needed for communities like Sea Lots. That’s the suggestion by PNM MP Nileung Hypolite in response to calls from Sea Lots residents for a walkover since the death of a mother and her two daughters on Sunday. A former junior works minister, Hypolite said walkovers might not necessarily be the solution since Paul and her daughters had been walking on the pavement, heading home, when a runaway car driven by an off-duty policeman ploughed into them. 

Hypolite said in the first instance guard rails appear to be sorely needed along the pavement in Sea Lots to protect pedestrians. He said the question of putting a traffic light at Sea Lots had to be carefully examined since the removal of lights was meant to facilitate traffic flow and ease congestion in that location. He said walkovers in various places including Cocorite were hardly used and under the previous administration a fence had been built at Cocorite to prevent pedestrians crossing, but had been dismantled to allow for the walkover. 

He said a walkover near a Baptist church in La Horquetta is also hardly used. “So one has to carefully examine where truly needs walkovers and where guard rails may be better, or perhaps a combination of both in some cases,” Hypolite said. He said, however, areas like Trincity and Piarco and similar high population centres might require walkovers.

Hypolite said the PNM administration over 2007-2010 had reached “conversation stage” on  developing Sea Lots by expanding the port facilities there. The plan includes a walkway linking Sea Lots to the PTSC terminus at City Gate. But he said there was no plan or drawings and that the PNM government had not reached the “rapport stage” with Sea Lots residents on relocation. 

There had also been talk of an airstrip in Sea Lots, but that never got airborne.