Prime Minister Mia Mottley called out Barbadians in an address at the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Annual Conference last week that we have become a nation of complainers. She encouraged Barbadians to offer solutions to assist in advancing the country’s development. In the spirit of being a compliant citizen the blogmaster offers a suggestion to ease traffic on our roads.
Traffic congestion in Barbados has moved from being an issue at peak times only to an all day occurence. It is obvious there is no attempt to implement effective traffic management controls by relevant authorities under the leadership of Minister Santia Bradshaw. Over 130,000 vehicles reported to be on a 166 square mile island. If you combine the traffic chaos and what appears to be adhoc construction of residential and commercial development, our picture postcard landscape continues to be negatively impacted by short sighted policies.
Many years ago a BLP government under a ‘shifty’ Minister of Transportation and Works Gline Clarke promoted the idea of constructing flyovers, to pattern the ‘big’ countries. The proposed project became shrouded in charges of corruption, local professionals questioned the technical integrity of the project and the competence of boutique 3S Barbados SRL company, contracted to oversee the project, some opined it was not fit for purpose for a small island i.e. disruption to the look and feel of a tropical island nation given our ‘unhealthy’ dependence on tourism.
The gridlock on our roads every minute of the day no doubt contributes to the high number of accidents and SHOULD be high on the priority list for officials. It appears however there is a deer in a headlights approach not dissimilar to what we see happening in our moribund court system, with out of control crime, a disintegrating QEH, lack of efficiency at NISS and Barbados Revenue Agency (BRA), lack of a national sports program and in every other sphere of civil society.
Before the blogmaster gets carried away by the enormity of the decline in society, a suggestion to comply with Mottley’s request.
A big reason for congestion on the road is that we have overcapacity, our roads and adhoc development sees a majority of traffic competing to reach the same destination at the same time. Why not make it a traffic violation for motorists blocking traffic entering a roundabout if unable themselves to exit due to back up. Take for example the following scenario at the Warrens Roundabout any day of the week which is the same for almost all the roundabouts on the ABC Highway:
Traffic headed in the direction of Eden Lodge/Green Hill is usually backed up forcing traffic entering the roundabout from Jackson to bottleneck in the roundabout, this has the effect of preventing traffic entering the roundabout from Waterford/Turning to also back up. A simple solution is to make it an offence (punishable by a fine) for motorist entering the roundabout to stop at a designated marking if the driver observes there is no opportunity to exit the roundabout. It is also useful to sustain education messaging to help motorists to negotiate our roundabout based on the level of ignorance currently on show..
How about this suggestion PRIME Minister Mottley and SENIOR Minister Bradshaw? Gimme the vote and watch muh!
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.