Mr. Rolle said in an interview with the Bahama Journal Tuesday that on average, Bahamian motorists make multiple trips a day to drop off and pick up children from school.
“Where you have children in high school and primary school you have to drop them off in the mornings to different schools and do the reverse in the afternoon,” he said.
Mr. Rolle said that the figures had come from studies done in 1995 by Dillon, a Canadian company that had been hired to study the traffic conditions on New Providence.
He believes that the situation still holds true today.
Out of that particular study came the new corridors – The Sir Milo Butler Highway and the Charles W. Saunders Highway – and the improvement of other intersections.
Work on Sir Milo Butler Highway was suspended after the parent company of the contracting company declared bankruptcy. The current Minister of Works Bradley Roberts has assured Bahamians that the necessary funds will be found and work is expected to resume in April or May of this year.
But many motorists continue to spend gruelling hours stuck in traffic. Trade unionists, employers and government official have long pointed to the fact that the situation affects job productivity.
Mr. Rolle estimates that during the workday – 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. – many employees spend an “extraordinarily high” amount of time in traffic – the peak times in traffic are between 7:30 am to 9 a.m.
During this period, many parents drop their children off to school. Then there is the legendary ‘school run’ between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. as parents leave their offices, pick up their children, drop them off for after school care and then return to their offices.
Finally there is the afternoon run when people leave work anywhere from 5 p.m to 7 p.m.
Also adding to this congestion is the hotels’ afternoon shift change, particularly on Paradise Island, which takes place between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. when the Mackey Street bridge looks like a parking lot.
The time spent in traffic by members of the workforce means that cumulatively, a significant portion of the workforce spends large chunks of time during the working day, not behind a desk or a counter or on the factory floor, but behind the steering wheel.
Mr. Rolle acknowledged that the traffic situation in New Providence can’t go on the way it is.
He said that the Traffic Policy and Planning Unit (TPPU), established in December 2001 and headed by Errol McPhee, deputy controller of Road Traffic, is responsible for looking at traffic issues in New Providence.
“The only remedy is to improve public transport to a level that parents feel safe and their children can take public transport,” he said. “The Traffic Policy and Planning Unit has been given the oversight and responsibility for traffic improvement matters.”
The two primary areas of concern for the TPPU are improving transportation on New Providence and “internal strengthening” of the road traffic regime.
“They are looking at ways to implement a safe and trustworthy public transportation system and to reorganize the road regulations with a view of better enforcement,” Mr. Rolle said.
He admitted that the major failure of the present public system was that parents do not feel it is safe enough for them to allow their children to use it and until they do feel comfortable with the system, they will probably continue to avoid using public transportation.
Mr. Rolle recognizes that significant improvements need to be made to the public transportation system.
“Presently when a driver is fired for an infraction he simply goes to another bus company and drives for them,” he explained.
“What we are proposing is a cooperative that would be self-policing within laws and regulations established by the Road Traffic [department]. In a cooperative, when a driver is fired he is fired from the cooperative and cannot drive again and we think this will go a long way in bringing confidence in the public system.”
Asked about the alleged practice of persons who have been issued with plates turning around and leasing them, Mr. Rolle said that the law required that the person requesting a licence to operate a public bus must have a certificate of ownership, a certificate of insurance and show that he is capable of putting a bus on the road.
“Once they meet those requirements we issue the licence,” he said.
He said that the Road Traffic Department was aware that allegations had been made that persons who had received public service plates were leasing them rather than putting a bus on the road in the spirit of the law.
The widespread practice appears to be a major stumbling block in setting up a reputable public transportation system, some observers have said.
Mr. Rolle said that the despite this seeming obstacle, the government had ruled out a public sector-owned and or operated transportation system.
“We believe that the people who have been in the business should benefit from the changes,” he said.
Mr. Rolle said that the government has been looking at regional solutions and found that regional governments have worked with the bus drivers and owners to help them organise themselves into a cooperative or company. He said these had been successful and they were moving toward finding a similar solution to the current traffic problems.
He was not prepared to venture a time when Bahamians can begin to expect some relief, but he pointed out that the Minister of Transportation Glenys Hanna-Martin, had appointed two separate committees to look at traffic issues and that late last year they had identified traffic “hot spots” to the police who then went to these areas to ensure there was road safety.
Mr. Rolle said these two committees, which were examining both the laws and the traffic conditions, would provide information to the TPPU, which was also being advised by an international consultant on traffic issues.
From these consultative processes, Mr. Rolle said the TPPU, which consist of transportation experts, would devise ways of strengthening existing laws and would be revisiting “critical issues” so that the Road Traffic Act is more responsive to current traffic needs.
“The goal is to find ways to provide safer and more efficient public transportation and improve traffic in New Providence,” he said.
C. E. Huggins, The Bahama Journal
