Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Down­town Port-of-Spain is start­ing to feel the ef­fects of a long-await­ed crack­down on il­le­gal park­ing, with 133 ve­hi­cles re­moved in the first week since the city’s en­force­ment ini­tia­tive was re­sumed.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said the move is al­ready eas­ing con­ges­tion and giv­ing re­lief to dri­vers and pub­lic trans­port op­er­a­tors alike.

“Some of my col­leagues have re­port­ed that as they’ve made their way across the city, dif­fer­ent taxi dri­vers whom they are fa­mil­iar with have stopped them and thanked them for get­ting the ini­tia­tive back up and run­ning,” he said yes­ter­day.

“They feel as though they can now ap­ply their trade with­out hav­ing to nav­i­gate cars that are il­le­gal­ly parked in taxi stands.”

Al­leyne high­light­ed the broad­er im­pact on the city. “We’ve seen an im­me­di­ate re­duc­tion in some of the con­ges­tion that has been hap­pen­ing across the city, and we’re com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ing with this project to bring about a safer, clean­er, more or­der­ly city.”

The may­or al­so not­ed con­cerns raised by the PTSC, whose bus­es have strug­gled to nav­i­gate down­town streets blocked by il­le­gal­ly parked ve­hi­cles.

“When bus­es are not able to keep to their reg­u­lar sched­ule, it re­duces peo­ple’s con­fi­dence in our pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem,” he said.

Al­leyne made it clear that the en­force­ment is not a short-term mea­sure for the hol­i­day sea­son.

“Through­out the com­ing Christ­mas pe­ri­od in­to Car­ni­val and be­yond, this park­ing en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ty is not for this sea­son. This is for the cap­i­tal city.”

He added that dis­cus­sions with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and his team re­in­forced the city’s de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­tin­ue the crack­down.

“This was one of the top­ics on the agen­da and we are com­mit­ted to see­ing it con­tin­ue,” Al­leyne said.

He said with con­ges­tion eas­ing and taxi dri­vers al­ready prais­ing the ini­tia­tive, this is the be­gin­ning of a longer-term plan to re­store or­der to the city streets.

How­ev­er, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud had a dif­fer­ent view, say­ing wreck­ing is not a so­lu­tion, as most tra­di­tion­al shop­ping hubs in the city are dwin­dling.

Aboud said the city’s fo­cus on traf­fic man­age­ment and park­ing en­force­ment is harm­ing the very peo­ple who sus­tain town cen­tres.

“Bus­es pass­ing or traf­fic move­ment is al­ways the fo­cus,” Aboud said.

“But nev­er is there any ex­pres­sion of con­cern re­gard­ing the in­ter­est of shop­pers or the at­trac­tive­ness of the city. If there could be a bal­ance be­tween pro­tect­ing the shop­ping en­vi­ron­ment and fa­cil­i­tat­ing traf­fic, it would be far eas­i­er to lis­ten to the bu­reau­crats.”

He de­scribed the con­di­tion of towns na­tion­wide as “shad­ows of them­selves,” point­ing to Ch­agua­nas, San Fer­nan­do, Rio Claro, Tu­na­puna, San­gre Grande and Curepe.

“All of these towns and cities are in de­cline. Speak to busi­ness own­ers, they will tell you man­agers are not un­der­stand­ing the needs of the towns. They are cre­at­ing con­di­tions that are hos­tile and un­wel­com­ing to shop­pers,” he said.

Aboud said ag­gres­sive en­force­ment poli­cies, in­clud­ing tow­ing cars with­out sig­nage or clear rules, are dri­ving or­di­nary cit­i­zens away.

“Per­sons of means don’t shop down­town. So, when au­thor­i­ties tow cars, its or­di­nary peo­ple pay­ing $500 fines and they won’t re­turn. This is de­stroy­ing busi­ness­es and con­cen­trat­ing com­merce in mega shop­ping cen­tres out­side the towns.”

He con­trast­ed this with pri­vate malls, not­ing, “Do you think man­agers of West Mall or Cen­tre City Mall would tow cars away with­out sig­nage or a rea­son­able park­ing plan? Nev­er. They know alien­at­ing shop­pers hurts busi­ness. City man­agers don’t de­pend on lo­cal busi­ness­es; they con­tin­ue re­gard­less of whether busi­ness­es sur­vive.”

Aboud re­ject­ed the char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion, say­ing, “This isn’t about wreck­ing. It’s about mis­man­age­ment. Poli­cies that alien­ate shop­pers do noth­ing to im­prove traf­fic—they on­ly dri­ve com­merce away and force busi­ness­es to re­lo­cate out­side the towns.”

DO­MA is call­ing for a re­view of ur­ban man­age­ment poli­cies to pro­tect lo­cal busi­ness­es, safe­guard jobs and re­vive down­town ar­eas.