JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 14, 2025

San Fernando Mayor tackles traffic congestion

by

504 days ago
20240226

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Traf­fic con­ges­tion has plagued San Fer­nan­do for the past few decades de­spite the ef­forts of the po­lice and City Cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials.

The streets around the city’s schools are con­gest­ed, with the worst traf­fic oc­cur­ring at In­de­pen­dence Av­enue, Ruth Av­enue, Seukaran Street, Farah Street, Todd Street, Cipero Street, Rush­worth Street Pointe-a-Pierre Road and Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

To ad­dress the prob­lem, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said con­tin­u­ous traf­fic al­le­vi­a­tion re­search and traf­fic re­duc­tion mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed.

Dur­ing the tenure of for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or (now Min­is­ter) Kaz­im Ho­sein, Par­ris served as chair­man of the Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture and Trans­port Com­mit­tee and was tasked with find­ing so­lu­tions to the city’s traf­fic prob­lem.

“Over the years, we have had some suc­cess. We have worked with law en­force­ment in prob­lem­at­ic ar­eas. We cre­at­ed des­ig­nat­ed drop-off and pick-up ar­eas near the city’s schools and in Gulf View we set up bar­ri­ers.

“All of this has as­sist­ed in al­le­vi­at­ing traf­fic along Carib Street near Grant School and the Gulf View Link Road,” he said.

Par­ris cred­it­ed his pre­de­ces­sor, Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, with suc­cess­ful­ly tack­ling in­ner city traf­fic, in­clud­ing con­ges­tion at peak time.

“We face chal­lenges be­cause of the num­ber of cars com­ing in­to the city. If we are to get rid of the traf­fic we must redi­rect these cars out of the city,” he said.

He pro­posed a shut­tle ser­vice with spe­cial bus­es for each school to pick up and drop off stu­dents.

“If we can get the par­ents to buy in­to the idea, we could set up school zones so peo­ple can drop their chil­dren off in cer­tain ar­eas and the bus will take them to school. That way we do not have all par­ents com­ing in­to the city to drop chil­dren off,” Par­ris ex­plained.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that va­cant lots be up­grad­ed to park­ing ar­eas and ex­pan­sion of traf­fic hubs in the city’s pe­riph­ery to re­duce the num­ber of cars com­ing in.

Par­ris said the new­ly opened Parkade is suc­cess­ful and in de­mand, as more peo­ple are park­ing there and us­ing the wa­ter taxi to get in­to Port-of-Spain.

Apart from cre­at­ing more park­ing, and set­ting up school drop-off zones, Par­ris plans to widen cer­tain ar­eas. He al­so wants to get so­lu­tions from the pub­lic, plans to re-es­tab­lish the SFCC’s Re­gion­al Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee and said re­vamp­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vice Trans­port Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) to in­clude ad­di­tion­al routes and hourly bus stops should al­so be con­sid­ered.

“I think if we get a bet­ter bus ser­vice and the in­tro­duc­tion of a shut­tle ser­vice on the city’s out­skirts, this will re­duce the num­ber of cars com­ing in­to the city,” he said.

Par­ris said the re­cent re­moval of ven­dors from High Street eased the bot­tle­neck in the city’s main shop­ping area.

He plans to mount a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign to pro­mote car­pool­ing.

“If you look at peo­ple stuck in traf­fic, you will see al­most every ve­hi­cle has no pas­sen­gers. We need to en­cour­age car­pool­ing,” he said.

In­ner-city taxi dri­vers say much of the traf­fic around schools is caused by “bad dri­ving” and flout­ing of traf­fic reg­u­la­tions.

“Along Pointe-a-Pierre Road par­ents of­ten line up as ear­ly as 11 am to get a park­ing space even though Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School dis­miss­es at 2.30 pm. This caus­es a lot of traf­fic. These fe­male dri­vers don’t give way and they should fire the po­lice be­cause the po­lice cre­ate traf­fic,” one dri­ver com­plained.

Taxi dri­vers on the San Fer­nan­do to Port-of-Spain route say traf­fic is much bet­ter in the south­ern city.

Mar­tin For­tune, who has been work­ing the route for 20 years, said there is a high­er vol­ume of cars in Port-of-Spain.

“In San Fer­nan­do, they rerout­ed some of the cars and that helped. They al­so did not al­low P cars to go on High Street and that eased con­ges­tion as well,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed rerout­ing some of the ve­hi­cles to pre­vent bot­tle­necks around the school zones.

For­tune said the traf­fic to Port-of-Spain is painful.

“It seems they are do­ing a new lane to help ease the traf­fic so we have to bear with them. They have eased the sit­u­a­tion by us­ing the shoul­der but it’s still a lot of traf­fic. Let’s hope it works,” he said.

Ul­ric Kir­ton, who has lived in San Fer­nan­do for 70 years, said San Fer­nan­do was al­ways a city pur­su­ing traf­fic so­lu­tions.

“The Cor­po­ra­tion is al­ways look­ing at new ideas and so­lu­tions which is good. San Fer­nan­do is eas­i­er to han­dle. Peo­ple come here to shop par­tic­u­lar­ly on a week­end be­cause shop­ping here is much cheap­er than in Port-of-Spain,” he said.

Randy Sinanan, of Fyz­abad, a reg­u­lar user of the wa­ter taxi ser­vice, said: “Traf­fic is re­al­ly bad, a col­league of mine took three hours from Port-of-Spain to San Fer­nan­do so I try my best to use the wa­ter taxi.”

Sinanan agreed that San Fer­nan­do’s traf­fic con­ges­tion has im­proved.

“Un­der the for­mer May­or Re­grel­lo, they al­le­vi­at­ed the traf­fic at South Park and al­so by SAPA. The traf­fic is flow­ing a lot bet­ter there,” he said.

Sgt Pooran Nand­lal said one of the main fac­tors con­tribut­ing to San Fer­nan­do is the lo­ca­tion of schools in the city, as well as the num­ber of busi­ness­es.

“Lack of prop­er park­ing is al­so a prob­lem, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Todd Street area where there are six schools and Carib Street area where there are two schools,” he said.

“If you look at off-school pe­ri­ods, you will see a re­duc­tion in traf­fic,” Nand­lal said, adding that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has part­nered with mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and traf­fic war­dens to deal with con­ges­tion.

“Spe­cif­ic of­fi­cers are as­signed at spe­cif­ic times to co­in­cide with the peak traf­fic time. We ap­peal to par­ents to uti­lize the Skin­ner Park Sec­ond Class grounds to fa­cil­i­tate pick-up and drop-offs. We have seen once this ini­tia­tive is in place and is uti­lized, the traf­fic buildup and the time spent in traf­fic are less,” he said.

Not­ing that peo­ple spend an av­er­age of one hour in traf­fic dai­ly, Nand­lal added: “We have said no park­ing on In­de­pen­dence Av­enue. We have al­so tried the Park and Ride but what caused that down­fall is the lack of ap­pro­pri­ate park­ing.”

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ali­cia Hen­ry said the po­lice want to part­ner with cit­i­zens to deal with traf­fic con­ges­tion.

“This is a small city and it is dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed. We have a lot of schools in the city, peak pe­ri­ods are morn­ings and evenings. We have spo­ken to the May­or and we have asked cit­i­zens to park and ride, use the parkade and the po­lice are there to make the city safe. We are in this to­geth­er,” she said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored