Maxi taxi shut down leaves Sangre Grande commuters scrambling

RALPH BAN­WARIE

Com­muters trav­el­ling out of San­gre Grande this morn­ing who de­pend­ed on maxi taxis for trans­porta­tion were forced to use PTSC bus­es, sev­en-seater taxis and com­mer­cial taxis as maxi taxi op­er­a­tors be­gan a three-day protest to­day.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the maxi taxi hub on Brier­ley Street and the East­ern Main Road, there were no maxi taxis in op­er­a­tion. The lo­ca­tions from which the red-band maxi taxis nor­mal­ly op­er­ate were emp­ty.

The op­er­a­tors are protest­ing for au­thor­i­ties to in­crease the high­way speed lim­it for maxi taxis from 65 km/h to 80 km/h, ad­dress es­ca­lat­ing crime af­fect­ing op­er­a­tors and pas­sen­gers, crack down on il­le­gal PH taxi op­er­a­tors, pay out­stand­ing monies owed to dri­vers for trans­port­ing school­child­ren, up­grade and im­prove maxi taxi hubs and ter­mi­nals, cre­ate a sys­tem to al­low op­er­a­tors to make NIS con­tri­bu­tions, and de­liv­er on com­mit­ments made dur­ing meet­ings with trans­port of­fi­cials.

A few small maxi taxis and two large maxi taxis were op­er­at­ing school trans­port ser­vices from the hub.

One dri­ver, who was wait­ing to be­gin his school run to Va­len­cia and de­clined to ap­pear on cam­era, said that af­ter com­plet­ing the trip he would be go­ing straight home.

He re­called that dur­ing the last protest, a maxi taxi was stopped along the Beetham High­way and pelt­ed with rot­ten eggs. Pas­sen­gers were re­port­ed­ly told to leave the ve­hi­cle or risk hav­ing rot­ten eggs thrown at them as well.

As a re­sult of the protest, some par­ents were forced to car­pool to get their chil­dren to school.

With Form Five and Form Six stu­dents cur­rent­ly writ­ing ex­am­i­na­tions, par­ents and teach­ers said the tim­ing of the protest was un­fair to stu­dents.

They ar­gued that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors could have sched­uled the protest dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

Some stu­dents whom Guardian Me­dia met at the hub said they had ex­am­i­na­tions to­day and were wait­ing for rides from friends’ par­ents.

Sev­er­al em­ploy­ees who work out­side San­gre Grande said they ex­pect­ed to ar­rive late for work. Some con­tact­ed their em­ploy­ers to ad­vise them of de­lays, while oth­ers said they in­tend­ed to take leave be­cause they an­tic­i­pat­ed dif­fi­cul­ties get­ting back home.

Po­lice of­fi­cers were sta­tioned at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions through­out San­gre Grande to mon­i­tor the protest.

Mean­while, plans to re­lo­cate the Ojoe Road and Fos­ter Road taxi stands were dis­missed by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers, and dri­vers were al­lowed to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing from their orig­i­nal taxi stands.