Geisha Kow­lessar

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma) Gre­go­ry Aboud has said he does not sup­port the con­cept of 'park and ride.' In­stead Aboud pro­posed me­tered taxis be al­lowed to en­ter the city. Aboud was speak­ing yes­ter­day to mem­bers of the me­dia af­ter a meet­ing with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan at Nicholas Tow­ers in Port-of-Spain. But Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing, who was not in­vit­ed to be part of the dis­cus­sions, said Aboud's idea of me­tered taxis was ini­tial­ly pro­posed by him (Lee Sing). "Mr Aboud is mere­ly echo­ing a com­ment I made two weeks ago when I pro­posed me­tered taxis en­ter the city to as­sist res­i­dents of St James and Wood­brook with trans­porta­tion," Lee Sing added. Say­ing park­ing in Port-of-Spain was as­sist­ing busi­ness­es be­cause it was al­lowed, Aboud said busi­ness own­ers could not sur­vive with­out park­ing. "The cus­tomers need some­where to park and park­ing is ex­treme­ly re­strict­ed in Port-of-Spain be­cause there are not enough park­ing lots," Aboud added.

He said at one time the area span­ning the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade to the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion used to be a park­ing lot. "In de­vel­oped so­ci­eties gov­ern­ments pro­vide mu­nic­i­pal park­ing...there is no de­bate about that. "The point about park and ride is it is not re­al­ly de­sir­able to us. We don't per­son­al­ly feel that park and ride would work be­cause as far as shop­pers are con­cerned why park and ride to a des­ti­na­tion when they could dri­ve to an­oth­er des­ti­na­tion and get what they want," Aboud said. Say­ing he ac­cept­ed the 'good in­ten­tions' the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion had for the city Aboud said a bet­ter con­cept was or­gan­ised mu­nic­i­pal tran­sit. "Port-of-Spain is a city that used to have a tram car and now Port-of-Spain bare­ly al­lows taxis in­to the city. "We would al­so like to dis­cuss the con­cept of me­tered taxis in­to Port-of-Spain. We be­lieve the con­cept of con­vert­ing "PH" cars in­to me­tered taxis this would great­ly as­sist with trans­porta­tion in and around the city of Port-of-Spain," Aboud added.