The an­nounce­ment of the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing in the cap­i­tal city has sparked both re­lief and rage from mo­torists and mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

Yes­ter­day, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne de­fend­ed the move, which fol­lows a tem­po­rary two-year sus­pen­sion due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

He said, “The feed­back from the gen­er­al pub­lic has been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive. I think most right-think­ing cit­i­zens have tak­en note of the amount of not just in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing, but dan­ger­ous park­ing that has spread across the city.”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the cor­po­ra­tion said tow­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have be­come nec­es­sary to reg­u­late il­le­gal and in­dis­crim­i­nate park­ing across the city, par­tic­u­lar­ly in res­i­den­tial ar­eas and along the city’s main road­ways. 

“Mo­torists are ad­vised to ob­serve and obey all road mark­ings and traf­fic signs and reg­u­la­tions. Park­ing il­le­gal­ly at street cor­ners, pedes­tri­an cross­ings, fire hy­drants, bus stops, taxi stands and gate­ways will re­sult in ve­hi­cles be­ing towed,” the state­ment said.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Al­leyne fur­ther not­ed that the move was not on­ly linked to traf­fic man­age­ment.

“It is an im­por­tant step for­ward at en­sur­ing that the roads are freer, that there is less traf­fic con­ges­tion and it is one of our ini­tia­tives for the up­com­ing rainy sea­son, as we pre­pare our evac­u­a­tion plans in case of any dis­as­ter that might oc­cur,” he said.

Mo­torists who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue ex­pressed mixed opin­ions. An­tho­ny Mar­tin stat­ed, “It is re­al­ly a good thing, but I would al­so like them to re­move all those oth­er cars that are parked on taxi stands that not sup­posed to be there.”

Matthew Moreno said, “It have cer­tain place they don’t wreck peo­ple and they want to wreck peo­ple here in the city? Why they don’t go around the Sa­van­nah with that.”

Ac­cord­ing to An­drew Alexan­der, “The place in a mess, it have no space any­where and peo­ple just park­ing all how. This coun­try has too many cars.” 

Dur­ing the coun­cil’s swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny last Au­gust, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­struct­ed Al­leyne and his team to ad­dress the park­ing is­sue in the city. Al­leyne stat­ed that the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing was part of the process to­wards traf­fic man­age­ment. “It is the first ma­jor step to­wards im­ple­ment­ing paid park­ing. As you can imag­ine, if there are park­ing me­ters in the city, no­body would make use of them with­out park­ing en­force­ment, so park­ing en­force­ment is the first step. The traf­fic man­age­ment branch, since last Oc­to­ber, has been re­paint­ing sig­nage, road mark­ings and in­stalling sig­nage. That project is com­plet­ed and we are mov­ing on to the next step which is park­ing en­force­ment.”

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA), Gre­go­ry Aboud, as­sert­ed that mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had re­ject­ed the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing due to its im­pact on the city’s com­merce.”

He said, “This ap­petite for wreck­ing is ex­treme­ly con­tro­ver­sial. It is a well-known ac­tiv­i­ty that the pub­lic has de­ter­mined based on the be­hav­iour of those in­volved as to what the in­ten­tion is.

“It re­al­ly is not traf­fic man­age­ment. I think those in au­thor­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly at City Hall should take an­oth­er look and re­sist the temp­ta­tion of the mon­ey.”

Aboud fur­ther al­leged that the city coun­cil head­ed by Al­leyne was nowhere close to find­ing a so­lu­tion to the city’s traf­fic man­age­ment plans. “At the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the last coun­cil, the Prime Min­is­ter made the point that he would want them to do one thing, if noth­ing else, to im­ple­ment park­ing me­ters be­fore their term end­ed. It has re­ceived ze­ro in­ter­est from City Hall. When we brought up the point re­peat­ed­ly, we were told the mat­ter re­quired leg­is­la­tion and that you have to go to the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and ask them about it. I have to say we are feel­ing a per­va­sive sense of hope­less­ness.”