Dear Editor,
The evidence would suggest that our Police Force is under-exposed; that its members do not read, certainly of the various, and even repetitive, commentaries in the media about themselves.
With respect to traffic management informed commuters are bemused by how under-informed its representatives are of the relevant legislation, preoccupied as they are in administering penalties, even though in some cases the speed check is not necessarily verifiable.
The latter however is only but a part of the palpable mismanagement of traffic that has grown exponentially and has to be crammed into the same space as the last century’s.
Traffic signage is pathetically inadequate, particularly when compared to that in the Region and beyond. The inadequacy of painted roadways, as distinct from the inadequacy of upright signals, confutes the proposition that Georgetown and highways thereto constitute a tourist attraction. Even basic No Entry signs are scarce as well as invisible.
But it is not necessarily the fault of those who can only do what they are told; who are too little exposed to comparable experience and/or training overseas, in order to learn how much more creative is traffic management, than mere humps – painted in white, yellow or not at all. There is the absence of any forensic investigation of the many avoidable accidents.
But perhaps the greatest faultline not being addressed is not the movement of various types of vehicles at the same incoherent speeds, (since the few speed limit signs are indiscriminate); but increasingly more critical is the provision of space for parking. Given the exponential rate at which the vehicular population is increasing, urgent attention needs to be given to this impasse. There has been absolutely no attempt to provide accommodation at or about the malls and other commercial houses being erected. On the contrary these very locations are derisibly identified with NO PARKING signage.
Decades ago in Trinidad & Tobago, more particularly its capital Port of Spain, it was a requirement that shopping malls for example provide ample parking space. This requirement also applied to such businesses as restaurants.
There and in Barbados is the example of storeyed parking lots. In Guyana we boast of progress – that is being on the move; but we have made absolutely no effort to make progress in simply being parked.
The introduction of new vehicles on a few marginally widened roadways would have to be reduced, if a determined effort is not made to cope with an intractable situation.
The situation surrounding our Parliament building can only be described as an environmental disgrace – to some reflective of our indifference to healthier and more civilised standards. The chaos and degradation do no credit to the image of a mistakenly described ‘garden city’.
No one, it seems, not even the Fire Service, has given thought to the many gallons of gasoline parked in the Stabroek Square, and the inherent explosiveness and danger, not only to individual lives, but moreso to the life of the city.
It is by no means too early to design an imaginative plan to deal with these hazards, as part of a more comprehensive project to cope with parking now and in the foreseeable future.
But then the above would not be read either.
Yours faithfully,
E.B. John
