The first thing that strikes a visitor (Guyanese or otherwise) to Georgetown is the chaos that prevails on the roads and the noise that attends this burlesque: of cars over-accelerating and swerving, of brakes screeching, of horns uniformly blaring and (until recently) of music pulsating from every minibus. It is possible to drive for months in other countries without resorting to the use of one’s car horn. In Guyana, this scenario is so unlikely as to be unthinkable. We love our horns. We use them at every opportunity.

Traffic in Georgetown does not flow: it lurches from mini-crisis to mini-crisis as drivers avoid an array of mobile and immobile obstacles – potholes, minibuses, stray dogs and cattle and errant pedestrians. A generation of neglect of road signs and markings and at best intermittent (and porous) enforcement of the traffic laws has coincided with a marked increase in the volume of vehicular traffic on the roads. There are now legions of drivers who regard basic rules such as signalling before executing a turn, stopping at a major road or waiting for a traffic light to turn green as the height of indulgence. The results are predictable: chaos at best, carnage at worst.

Traffic systems, when they are fully functional, depend on a shared understanding of the rules, an agreement to abide by them and constant monitoring by the state, in order to operate effectively. In this respect, they are not unlike communities. Have you ever observed a busy four or five-lane highway with thousands of cars speeding along it? This flow and volume of traffic is possible only where drivers are trained to drive with a certain etiquette, to obey road signs and to be extremely fearful of the consequences if they do not. Main roads and motorways in the UK, for example, have speed cameras as a permanent fixture: you can be penalised heavily for driving at 35 mph in a zone designated at 30 mph. Traffic violations result in penalties either in the form of fines or (more feared) the points system where, when sufficient points accrue, a driver’s licence is suspended. Poor driving is penalised by taking the offender off the roads.

It is much easier to police and patrol a centralised public transport system of buses where drivers are trained specifically to drive the vehicles used and held accountable for infringements such as overloading and speeding by their employers as well as the state. Buses in the UK sometimes have a sign printed on the rear panels encouraging road users to call a number to report instances of speeding or poor driving. However, as a letter writer in our columns pointed out a few months ago, our public transport provision lacks a unifying system. Like it or not, minibuses are now a part of our road culture (and our economy). And, at their best, they offer a form of flexible public transport that many users value enormously. Bigger buses could be added on the more popular routes, to improve economies of scale, but it is fruitless to contemplate, now, an idealised transport system where minibuses no longer exist. However, they must be regulated. Initiatives to standardise their appearance and remove the musical assault many subjected their passengers to are to be commended. However, much remains to be done: speeding, overloading, observing the designated bus stops and routes and loading of passengers at bus-parks are the most obvious and frequent areas of abuse. The only way to police this effectively is to hold the minibus driver accountable for all violations and to penalise him (or her) with a system that results in the eventual loss of his licence and therefore livelihood. As Dudley Moore once quipped:  “the best car safety device is a rear view mirror with a cop in it.”

There are bigger questions to consider as well.  How do we envisage people travelling around Georgetown in a decade or two? Do we predict a time when every citizen has a car to drive? If so, where will we park them all? Fifty years ago, James Marston Fitch made the following observation in the New York Times: “the automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic.”  Anyone who has driven in downtown Port-of-Spain will testify that the dream of universal car ownership ends, more often than not, in total gridlock and a sea of exhaust fumes.

Georgetown was originally designed with pedestrians in mind, hence the luxurious avenues in our main thoroughfares. Trains brought people from outlying areas and a couple of tram routes took them through and across the town. Since then, pedestrians (of whom a disproportionate number are children) have become the forgotten road users: there has been no coherent provision for them in any of our new roads. Cyclists are also second-class citizens. Given our terrain, it would seem sensible to encourage the use of bicycles. Instead, it’s a hazardous enterprise to pedal along our roads and only an occasional intrepid foreigner or those with few options attempt it.

Is it impossible to contemplate a few pedestrian zones, oases of shopping and socialising, in the centre of the city? This would require some forward planning for the provision of car parks and adequate public transport to the fringes but surely it would preserve some of the city for the walking public. What about a network of cycle paths and one way streets? Why not use roundabouts at some junctions instead of traffic lights? There is much to debate and much to plan if we want to avoid having events dictate the options as is often the way in Guyana. Cars, minibuses and other vehicles have come to dominate our roads to the exclusion of other road users. We must not allow them (and their drivers) to overwhelm our urban landscape.