Traffic Management In Trinidad

Incase anybody was under a rock in the last few days, there was a massive gridlock in the north western corner of Trinidad on Sunday 3rd June.. The stream of cars started as early as 4am and did not end until around midnight Sunday. People spent up to 6 hours in traffic- on the way in, and depending on the time they chose to leave, some spent 6 hours on the way back out. The attraction to the area was for a couple of reasons . One was the inaugural Redbull Flugtag event in the Caribbean. The event was free to the public and held at Williams Bay Chaguaramas. This was scheduled to start at 10am and go until the night time with a concert happening in the evening. The second was the annual St Peter's Day event in Carenage.

There was little the police could do with the man power assigned on the day and they had no excuse to say they were caught off guard as the event was publicised months and the police themselves did try to help with a plan to stop parking from Glencoe to Pier 1.  Days before the event it was well known there would be people camping on the beach to see the Redbull event. I am wondering if an extra patrol put out to safeguard the campers. The reason why the campers went up the night before was to avoid the traffic jam on the morning of the event. Days before the event on the two main facebook events created there was an unquestionable indication of the scale of the crowd that would be attending, one page with 16,000+ and one with 31,000+ people saying they were attending the event. I imagine more than a couple high ranking police officers with the power to act on the situation, or to inform the right people were aware of these numbers.

On the day of the event were the dozens of cameras throughout Port of Spain and the highways monitored to see the volume of cars passing in the early morning? If it was being monitored and an alert was raised I think by 8 or 9 am the police would have stopped any more cars from going past West Mall. Whether or not anybody at the top posts were on duty or not and whether or not they had enough manpower to do something about the situation is irrelevant. The point of having the cameras and supporting software is to have a small team on duty 24 hours monitoring it and passing on the necessary alerts. Man power was not needed to call a few media houses and put out a bulletin on the tv and radio advising of the gridlock and to turn back. Manpower was not needed to put up a warning on the electronic billboards at the Aranguez overpass advising people to turn back.

The organisers of the Flugtag event have called it a great success because they did accomplish what they set out to do, have a large turn out and a safe event. The problem though was the participants and organisers themselves were in the traffic and could not get to the venue. Boat owners made trips from the foreshore from as far out as Movie Towne POS to pick up people to go to the Flugtag. The organisers for the St. Patrick's Day event were not happy about the traffic jam either as it stopped people who really wanted to see just that. Two boys drowned due to an overturned pirogue which was over loaded. Thousands of accumulative hours were spent in the gridlock and a lot of people were frustrated and angry for something that could have been avoided. The residents as far east as St. James suffered the most because they could not get to or from their homes.

It took a few weeks but the cable barriers along the Solomon Hochoy highway has been tested a few times in recent days. One happened on a Tuesday and was repaired by that Friday, so well done to the repair crew. This was a blink of an eye relative to typical Trini timing. For the others there have been a couple posts replaced or new wires installed, but not tensioned. These barriers are designed for up to a maximum speed after which they are useless and only if they are repaired after a hit. A section of a few hundred feet is disable when one spot is cut. The grass between the barriers is cut with a tractor and the section under the barrier itself is sprayed with poison as the tractor cannot cut there. I hope the crew who is doing repairs keeps up the quick response to accidents involving the cable barriers. The guard rails are only replaced or installed perhaps once a year, almost never when an accident takes a piece out.

Each exit along all the highways should have an electronic billboard before it that is able to advise motorists of an accident and delays after that exit and to exit here if possible. The east-west corridor already has cameras but they are not used for traffic advisory to the public. Not all destinations have a second route but for people who have a choice they should be advised to use it. I have seen it myself and heard stories of people making u-turns on the new 'Police Monitoring' points that connect the north/south highway.

There is a woman I see almost everyday to and from work driving in the opposite direction. She has one hand with her phone to her ear and one hand on the steering wheel and happily chatting. When the law for not using cell phones while driving was passed she got a bluetooth headset and used it for almost 3 weeks. Now she is back to one hand on her phone to her ear, morning and evening. Maybe she lost her headset? It must be. I think I saw her just driving (not on the phone) only twice for the year so far.  I see people struggling to make corners because they cannot turn the steering wheel properly with one hand. This includes drivers of SUVs and trucks, which are more dangerous and should have higher fines for using a phone while driving them.

I still see small children standing inside cars. The cars range from a 120y to Corolla, b14, Alteeza, 5 Series, to X-Trail, CRV, X5, Range Rovers. The drivers (parents??) are ofcourse wearing their seatbelts (I would not doubt only because modern cars have buzzers if they do not wear them). It is a little over a year now since we had a few accidents with children being ejected through windows and windscreens, not that it needed that long for people to forget the issue. Even while they were happening I remember seeing it and it has not let up. The safety features of cars are meant to work all assuming your seat belt is on. Even if you are the world's greatest driver the world's worst driver can hit you. If not a car, a new pothole might be around the next corner, a twitch of the wrist and out flies Billy...

The breathalyser test has allowed dozens of drunk drivers to be charged/fined/jailed, but look at the people coming out of the parking lot of any restaurant or bar... With the volume of cars on the road, their power, the high availability of alcohol, little to no enforcement or respect for laws, the lack of foresight from those in government for intelligent infrastructure or for using what is already in place,  we have a grim picture for the future of our roadways.