Commuters endure long waits for transport

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

De­spite leav­ing their homes ear­li­er than usu­al to try and work around the maxi taxi strike, com­muters were still left frus­trat­ed and dis­ap­point­ed yes­ter­day, as they wait­ed for as long as two hours be­cause there were not enough Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus­es to help al­le­vi­ate the back­log of com­muters.

But com­muters weren’t the on­ly peo­ple af­fect­ed, as small busi­ness­es and taxi dri­vers work­ing along ad­ja­cent routes al­so com­plained of an over­all slow­down in ac­tiv­i­ty due to the protest.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route near the Mt Lam­bert in­ter­sec­tion short­ly af­ter 6 am, where small groups of peo­ple were al­ready gath­ered on the side­walks along the east­bound and west­bound lanes, await­ing maxi taxis.

The com­muters, many of them of­fice work­ers, were seen hold­ing their lunch bags as they stood wait­ing for trans­port, with one maxi taxi seen pass­ing short­ly af­ter 15 min­utes.

Keisha Levine, who was wait­ing with her son, a St Mary’s Col­lege stu­dent, said they had been wait­ing for a maxi taxi since 5.30 am. She said while she ex­plained the sit­u­a­tion to her em­ploy­ers and even in­clud­ed a video of the emp­ty Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, she was un­sure of how she would get to work yes­ter­day and to­day if the op­er­a­tors con­tin­ued with the protest ac­tion.

“I have no idea right now, but I have to find some way of trav­el­ling be­cause this is un­ac­cept­able,” Levine said.

Af­ter a few min­utes, sev­er­al com­muters were seen leav­ing the in­ter­sec­tion, walk­ing to­wards San Juan, where one man said he hoped to find a taxi dri­ver that would take him to Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, sim­i­lar scenes were ob­served when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Croisee in San Juan, where size­able crowds gath­ered near the in­ter­sec­tion and the PTSC ter­mi­nal build­ing await­ing trans­port.

Com­muter Vanes­sa Coop­er said she worked in Diego Mar­tin, not­ing that even af­ter ar­riv­ing in Port-of-Spain, she would have to get an­oth­er maxi taxi to get to her work­place. She said while the strike caused sig­nif­i­cant de­lays, she was sym­pa­thet­ic to the con­cerns of maxi taxi dri­vers and hoped their griev­ances could be ad­dressed to re­store trans­port.

“This is their liveli­hood and it will be af­fect­ing them al­so. We could say that they shouldn’t do this be­cause we have to go to work and we are in­con­ve­nienced but re­mem­ber, if they don’t work, they won’t have any mon­ey ei­ther,” Mar­tin said.

“So, I wish they could get their meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Trans­port. So, I hope that when this three days pass, they can speak with him and re­solve it, be­cause it can go longer... Wednes­day could come and they de­cide to ex­tend it for the en­tire week.”

In Curepe, one dri­ver work­ing the Curepe to Ch­agua­nas route, who asked not to be named, re­port­ed that there was a slow­down in the pas­sen­gers due to the maxi taxi strike, not­ing that oth­er taxi dri­vers on near­by stands strug­gled to fill their ve­hi­cles for trips.

“We re­ly on peo­ple stop­ping from the east to stop out here for trans­port to go South and Cen­tral. It’s been a big dif­fer­ence from how a nor­mal Mon­day is com­pared to to­day and I think to­mor­row might be worse be­cause of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.”

Near­by, dri­vers on the Mara­cas-St Joseph taxi stand on the East­ern Main Road al­so com­plained of a drop in busi­ness, as sev­er­al taxis re­mained parked with the en­gines idling.

“The last time I see such slow busi­ness was dur­ing the (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic. It has been hard and a lot of peo­ple an­tic­i­pat­ed it would be dif­fi­cult, but I don’t think they re­alised it would be so tough on us.”

Even as many maxi dri­vers stayed away from work, a small num­ber of maxi op­er­a­tors were seen ac­cept­ing pas­sen­gers.

One maxi taxi dri­ver, who iden­ti­fied him­self on­ly as John, said he was not par­tic­i­pat­ing in the strike be­cause he need­ed to sup­port him­self, cit­ing var­i­ous ex­pens­es.

“I have my bills and I have in­sur­ance to pay this week, so I want to know if the (Maxi Taxi) as­so­ci­a­tion go­ing and pay it for me. So, what I strik­ing for? I don’t have time for that.”

The dri­ver, who said he worked on the East­ern Main Road from Ari­ma to Port-of-Spain, said while some dri­vers tried to pres­sure him to take part in the strike, his per­son­al ex­pens­es were a pri­or­i­ty.

“It had peo­ple in Curepe and thing who tried to bul­ly me and all kin­da thing, but me ain’t tak­ing that. I let­ting them know I have bills to pay and chil­dren to send to school. Me ain’t study­ing them and their protest.”

While in Ari­ma, road­side drinks ven­dor Dinique Den­nis said she had seen a no­tice­able drop in sales, not­ing many of her cus­tomers were pas­sen­gers and maxi dri­vers. She said de­spite the slow­down, she will be re­turn to ply her goods to­day, as the strike is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue.

“I will still come out. Hus­tling is a must, you have to make sure and eat and feed your fam­i­ly, so this is a must. I sym­pa­thise with the maxi dri­vers and not just them the whole coun­try.”

Ari­ma com­muter In­grid Hug­gins ad­mit­ted that while she faced some dif­fi­cul­ties get­ting from her home to Ari­ma, she was grate­ful for help in get­ting trans­port. She urged dri­vers to be their neigh­bours’ keep­ers and of­fer trans­port to friends or co-work­ers as the strike con­tin­ues.

“We have to look out for one an­oth­er, as hard as the coun­try is, be­cause with­out us, the coun­try can­not be good.”