Dear Editor,
Several years ago, I used this very forum to voice frustration over the daily traffic jam created at Montrose on the ECD highway by activities of the school, the Academy of Apex Education. Nothing has changed since. On school days, between roughly 8 and 8.30 am, vehicular traffic heading towards Georgetown backs up for over a mile from the pedestrian crossing in front of the school. It takes 5 to 10 minutes to crawl through this zone when normally it should take a minute.
While we rightly take care of the safety of the children of Apex by stationing a traffic cop to control the flow of traffic, we are inconveniencing and delaying hundreds of other schoolchildren heading to schools in Georgetown, not to mention the hundreds of workers, minibus operators and others.
How quickly and effectively we solve these ordinary problems is an indication of our maturity as a nation. A traffic cop at the location has not solved the problem. The Apex children go back and forth across the highway at will, causing traffic to be stopped too often. The Traffic Department may be actually complicit in creating the illusion of a solution. The remedy lies in the school introducing an earlier starting time in the mornings. I repeat my suggestion that the starting time should be between 7 to 7.30 am, before the morning traffic peak.
I call on the Apex school authorities and the police to get together to resolve this matter. They must consider the interest and welfare of all affected citizens.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe