Maxi protest disrupts morning commute

By Gail Alexan­der

Com­muters faced sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tions this morn­ing as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion be­gan a three-day protest over is­sues in­clud­ing speed lim­its.

By 6.30 am, the Port of Spain City Gate trans­port hub, usu­al­ly crowd­ed with Red Band max­is, stood vir­tu­al­ly emp­ty. Sim­i­lar scenes un­fold­ed at the Mor­vant and San Juan junc­tions, where scores of com­muters gath­ered while seek­ing al­ter­na­tive trans­port.

The dis­rup­tion fol­lowed the as­so­ci­a­tion's de­ci­sion to with­draw ser­vice from to­day un­til Wednes­day.

De­spite the maxi taxi protest, con­ven­tion­al taxis con­tin­ued op­er­at­ing in Port of Spain and west Trinidad. Port of Spain and Ch­agua­nas minibus­es were al­so avail­able for pas­sen­gers at their In­de­pen­dence Square stand, while San­gre Grande max­is op­er­at­ed from Hen­ry Street.

At the PTSC hub in Port of Spain, long queues formed for Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas and Ch­aguara­mas ser­vices. Around 6.05 am, PTSC an­nounced de­lays on those routes. When bus­es ar­rived af­ter 6.15 am, they quick­ly filled to ca­pac­i­ty and de­part­ed.

The PTSC's San Fer­nan­do coach left at 6.30 am half full, while a lim­it­ed-stop San Fer­nan­do ser­vice de­part­ed short­ly af­ter­wards at 6.40 am.

The City Gate hub, where Red Band max­is typ­i­cal­ly drop off and col­lect pas­sen­gers be­fore lin­ing up for ad­di­tion­al fares, re­mained no­tice­ably de­sert­ed through­out the pe­ri­od.

The Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, usu­al­ly busy with maxi taxis dur­ing the morn­ing rush, was al­so large­ly emp­ty, with on­ly a hand­ful of Red Band ve­hi­cles seen en­ter­ing Port of Spain or trav­el­ling east.

Large num­bers of com­muters con­tin­ued to wait for trans­port at the Mor­vant and San Juan junc­tions, while the queue for PTSC's Ari­ma ser­vice al­so swelled.

One com­muter who board­ed the 5 am PTSC bus from Ari­ma to Port of Spain said the ser­vice filled much ear­li­er than usu­al.

"It was packed with peo­ple this morn­ing. It filled up faster from D'Abadie when it usu­al­ly fills up from low­er down..." he said.

Traf­fic head­ing in­to Port of Spain along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way was bumper-to-bumper, while south­bound traf­fic flowed at its nor­mal pace.