Mayor unveils traffic plan and cleanup push for capital

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne an­nounced that a re­newed traf­fic-man­age­ment and wreck­ing ini­tia­tive will com­mence to­mor­row, aimed at ad­dress­ing long-stand­ing is­sues of con­ges­tion and un­safe park­ing across the cap­i­tal.

Re­spond­ing to calls for a struc­tured park­ing sys­tem in­stead of en­force­ment, DO­MA Chair­man Gre­go­ry Aboud said the city must fo­cus on a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to traf­fic and park­ing man­age­ment rather than re­ly­ing sole­ly on wreck­ing op­er­a­tions.

May­or Al­leyne, who was in Sealots at the time, stressed that im­me­di­ate ac­tion is re­quired to re­store or­der while longer-term so­lu­tions are de­vel­oped.

“One of the ma­jor chal­lenges in lo­cal gov­ern­ment is bal­anc­ing the needs of all stake­hold­ers,” he ex­plained. “We re­ceive com­plaints from res­i­dents, busi­ness own­ers, and com­muters about ve­hi­cles block­ing key ar­eas and cre­at­ing traf­fic dis­rup­tions. Peo­ple want a city that func­tions ef­fi­cient­ly, and we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to act.”

The may­or con­firmed that the ini­tia­tive is a co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort be­tween the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion and the TTPS Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion.

“This is a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” Al­leyne said. “We will be tar­get­ing ar­eas where park­ing and traf­fic have be­come un­safe or dis­rup­tive. The goal is to im­prove traf­fic flow, en­hance safe­ty, and en­sure the city works for every­one.”

Al­leyne em­pha­sised that the en­force­ment is in­tend­ed to main­tain or­der, not pun­ish mo­torists.

“All stake­hold­ers must have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to move freely, con­duct busi­ness, and en­joy a safe en­vi­ron­ment,” he not­ed. “Bet­ter traf­fic man­age­ment will al­so en­cour­age more peo­ple to come in­to Port-of-Spain and par­tic­i­pate in its econ­o­my.”

May­or Al­leyne al­so kicked off the city’s an­nu­al year-end cleanup cam­paign this week, em­pha­siz­ing the im­por­tance of keep­ing the cap­i­tal’s streets and wa­ter­ways free from haz­ardous waste.

Since the pro­gramme’s in­cep­tion, the may­or not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in white waste en­ter­ing the city’s wa­ter­ways, which has pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed flood man­age­ment in down­town Port-of-Spain and across the city.

“This is a very im­por­tant ac­tiv­i­ty for us, es­pe­cial­ly now that pro­grammes like CEPEP and URP have end­ed,” Al­leyne said. “The bur­den of clean­ing and main­tain­ing the city now falls square­ly on the cor­po­ra­tion. While our re­sources have been sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced, we re­main com­mit­ted to in­vest­ing what we have to en­sure a clean city.”

Al­der­man Wade Cok­er, chair­man of the city’s san­i­ta­tion com­mit­tee, said the ini­tia­tive has been run­ning suc­cess­ful­ly for the past three years, with res­i­dents well aware of the pro­gramme and ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing.

“We start­ed with the dis­tricts of Bel­mont, St Ann’s Riv­er North, and St Ann’s Riv­er South,” Cok­er ex­plained. “This is our third week­end, and we are go­ing un­til the 21st, fin­ish­ing in Bel­mont East. It’s a sig­nif­i­cant step in the right di­rec­tion. The burgess­es know about it, and with Christ­mas com­ing, there’s usu­al­ly a lot of white waste to put out, so so far, so good.”

The cam­paign en­cour­ages res­i­dents to place bulky items such as old fridges, stoves, and couch­es out­side for col­lec­tion.

The cam­paign con­tin­ues un­til the week of Christ­mas.

Coun­cil­lor Ja­nine Fred­er­ick, rep­re­sent­ing the St Ann’s Riv­er South dis­trict, high­light­ed the pro­gramme’s so­cial im­pact, par­tic­u­lar­ly for sin­gle par­ents.

“So, we have work­ers on Pi­o­neer Dri­ve and on Pro­duc­tion Av­enue from Sealots,” Fred­er­ick said. “This is a very im­pact­ful pro­gramme. The grass was ex­treme­ly high—high as me—and now, as you can see, the work­ers are out, and the area is look­ing very love­ly.”

Fred­er­ick not­ed that many of the work­ers are sin­gle moth­ers. “If you go up close, you will see that the per­sons do­ing the work are fe­males,” she said. “It gives mo­men­tum to the com­mu­ni­ty and shows that there is hope still. This ex­tra earn­ing around Christ­mas has been a re­al pop-up for them.”

She added that the work helps these fam­i­lies pro­vide for their chil­dren dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son. “They are look­ing for­ward to the toys, the ham, and the dec­o­ra­tions in their homes. So, this is a very, very im­pact­ful pro­gramme,” Fred­er­ick said.

The cam­paign con­tin­ues un­til the week of Christ­mas.