Works and Infrastructure Minister Dr Suruj Rambachan has admitted that congestion on the nation's roads has been fuelling road rage, stress, lack of productivity and takes away from family and leisure time.In the last two years, Rambachan said his ministry has been implementing measures to reduce the gridlock, which continues to be of great worry and concern to him.
From 2010 to 2015, Rambachan said the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency has injected $4.4 billion on the widening and building of new roads, construction of interchanges, highways, bypasses and overpasses to ease the bottlenecks faced by motorists daily. Also $300 million was spent to rehabilitate 25 bridges across the country."These bridges were not structurally sound, which motorists were using every day. Since we came into Government there has been a lot of road development.
"When you look at what we inherited to where we are now we have done quite a lot," Rambachan said at his Port-of-Spain office on Wednesday.Rambachan attributed the gridlock to several factors, but pointed out that the growing number of vehicles on the roads was adding to the problem.
At the end of 2014, Rambachan said the Licensing Office had recorded 786,297 registered vehicles.From 2011 to 2014, Rambachan said 106,074 vehicles were registered, which he described as phenomenal.
"This shows that this country has money and people are well-off. The number of vehicles on the roads is worrisome because traffic delays are really an attack on productivity."Rambachan said to lessen the stress of motorists Government has embarked on a programme of decentralisation of services in Central and South.He said establishing Government offices and services in these areas would save people time and money to come into the congested city for services or to conduct business.
"The Government has also approved construction of malls in South, which would reduce citizens from crowding the inner city to shop. We are also looking at development of local government roads and improving and widening them. When you develop those roads you have more egress and entrances."
While Rambachan has been trying to alleviate the bottlenecks in East, West and South with the construction of the Valencia bypass, the Diego Martin Highway Extension and the extension of the Solomon Hochoy Highway to Point Fortin, he said reducing traffic into Port-of-Spain during peak hours was proving to be a daunting task.
Though his ministry has developed a third lane for motorists exiting the city, Rambachan said "the challenge we have right now is traffic coming into Port-of-Spain on mornings and the length of time it takes people to commute. We are giving consideration to the development of the shoulder on the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway into a fourth lane to be used at specific hours. The management of traffic is a challenge."
Rambachan said they were also toying with the idea to designate areas in South, where motorists could park their vehicles on mornings and travel to Port-of-Spain.Plans are also in the pipeline to increase the strength of traffic wardens from 300 to 700 in the coming months to direct vehicles where there are snarl-ups.In Sangre Grande, Rambachan said they intend to develop a road or series of connected roads, encircling the community before year's end to ease the congestion from the roundabout near the district's police station all the way to the market.
With the establishment of the Chaguaramas Boardwalk, Rambachan said droves of citizens were now venturing into the north-west peninsula for recreation, relaxation and enjoyment on weekends.Rambachan said it was suggested by business people, motorists and commuters that Government build a causeway- which is a raised road or track across low or wet ground in Chaguaramas to reduce the traffic.
"It's like a bridge across the sea. That is a matter that has to take further discussions because any investment like that must have the ability to repay. It's not an easy decision."Asked if he was for or against the idea, Rambachan said it was one that has to be studied."You cannot make major decisions without feasibility studies."