The rains that lashed Montego Bay on Friday night (Oct. 31st) have brought to light, once again, the chaos that is Montego Bay's infrastructure. Horror stories about journeys that should take 30 minutes taking upwards of 5 hours were relayed by text message, phone calls and status messages on Facebook. Commuters were stranded downtown for hours because the taxis were stuck in traffic that finally cleared up at around 11pm.
Every time it rains the city comes to a standstill. Why is that?
In my opinion, there are two main causes. The first is the testament to short-sightedness and lack of forward planning that is the Fairview intersection. I've ranted about this eighth wonder of the world in a previous post, so let's just say despite all the lobbying that has been done, despite the fact that the government started work on the intersection and promised to complete it by a date that's long gone, it's still there and still creating headaches for commuters.
The second cause is the fact that Mobay drivers in general, and Mobay taxi drivers in particular, are among the worst in the world, bar none. They run red lights, create three or four lanes on roads meant for one, refuse to wait in the turning lane, overtake around corners only to come to a screeching halt in the midddle of the road three seconds later when the lady walking down the road kinda look like she want a taxi, don't use indicators or have brake lights and on top of it all, tell you all manner of bad wud when you refuse to let them cut into the line of traffic that you've been patiently waiting in for three hours.
What that behaviour means is that, in addition to a poorly designed traffic system, you have a legion of "drivers", and I use the term very loosely, who, among other things, clog intersections by refusing to obey the traffic lights, and overtake by any means necessary to get one car length ahead. The resultant effect is what happened on Friday, and what happens on a smaller scale every rush hour.
So what's the solution? Immediately ban all drivers found breaching certain sections of the road code from owning, operating or even looking at a car for five years? Tempting. Very tempting.
The first step is to lobby Mike Henry to stop the damn foolishness and fix the traffic system in Mobay. Not just the Fairview intersection, but the whole traffic system. It's retarded. There's a traffic center that's close to a "highway" but you can only turn one way onto the highway, which means that hundreds of taxis and buses make a u-turn at the traffic light down the road, which blocks the intersection.
There are intersections with two turn signals when only one lane should turn, which creates confusion. There are intersections with turn signals for roads that are used once or twice a year. Most of the signals seemed to be timed rather than triggered bythe presence or absence of traffic.
Once we fix that, THEN we can ban all drivers found breaching certain sections of the road code from owning, operating or even looking at a car. Zero tolerance should be the order of the day.
You drove on the sidewalk? Banned!
You overtook a line of traffic around a corner while carrying eight passengers in your five seater? Banned!
You have more than one ticket for driving without brake lights? Banned!
You operating a taxi without the necessary road license? Banned!
You drove while you were banned? Straight prison!
The safety and sanity of all us require that something be done now. Email Mike Henry at clarendon-c@jamaicalabourparty.com and let him know how you feel.
If anyone has another email address for him please let me know.
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