Kevon Felmine

Use the Park and Ride ser­vice or face the $500 wreck­ing fee.That was the ul­ti­ma­tum Trans­port Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz gave as he launched the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion's Park and Ride ini­tia­tive on Wednes­day at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do.Cadiz said it was de­signed to ease traf­fic con­ges­tion in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son but he pro­posed to have it run through­out the year.

"If it is any in­cen­tive, you have a choice: Ei­ther pay $500 to the wreck­er or $20 to PTSC and I don't think there is any math in that. There is no de­ci­sion to make there, the $20 is the way to go," Cadiz said.The ser­vice al­lows the pub­lic to park their cars at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) and the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, from where they will be shut­tled to down­town San Fer­nan­do.

From Mon­day, the three bus­es al­lo­cat­ed for the Park and Ride ser­vice will leave the venues at 30-minute in­ter­vals from 7 am to 6 pm dai­ly.Cadiz said there would be se­cured park­ing even if cus­tomers re­turned late for their ve­hi­cle.He added: "When we talk about build­ing mul­ti-sto­ry car parks, yes, it is nec­es­sary, be­cause not every­body can ac­cess the park­ing ar­eas out­side of the city."Some peo­ple need to have their mo­tor cars in the city and what we need to do is find ways and means of deal­ing with that.

"But for those of us who work 8 am to 4 pm, who will not jump in their cars for the bal­ance of the day, let us use the Park and Ride. You can't get a bet­ter deal than $20 a day for park­ing."He said he has al­so been talk­ing with Ch­agua­nas may­or Gopaul Boodan on in­tro­duc­ing the ser­vice in the bor­ough.Cadiz said while the min­istry and PTSC ex­am­ined the fea­si­bil­i­ty of con­tin­u­ing the ser­vice be­yond the Christ­mas sea­son, there need­ed to be greater co-op­er­a­tion be­tween the wa­ter taxi ser­vice and the bus ser­vice.

Among the pro­pos­als is a ser­vice that al­lows peo­ple who live in ar­eas out­side the city and work in Port-of-Spain to park their ve­hi­cles at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba and oth­er venues. They can then board a shut­tle to the Wa­ter Taxi Ter­mi­nal at King's Wharf, en route to Port-of-Spain, all for one fee.Speak­ing at the launch, deputy San Fer­nan­do may­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo called on Cadiz to help the city cor­po­ra­tion get two lo­ca­tions to ac­com­mo­date pub­lic park­ing in San Fer­nan­do.

De­spite his en­dorse­ment of the Park and Ride, Re­grel­lo said the can­cel­la­tion of 1,400 pub­lic park­ing spaces at the Chancery Lane Com­plex, cou­pled with the grow­ing ve­hi­cle pop­u­la­tion, had caused traf­fic chaos in San Fer­nan­do.