Editorial | Unleashing more traffic chaos?

Transport Minister Robert Montague, settling into his new role, has announced a raft of proposals to address the problems confronting the public transport system.

We have a public transport system made up of buses, minibuses, motorcycles, taxis and the ubiquitous robots. They manage to move people within our cities and towns in a mostly inefficient and often unsafe manner.

So we can understand that the new minister is anxious to create changes that will result in a system that is efficient, safe and affordable for members of the travelling public.

Mr Montague's proposal of issuing unlimited taxi and bus route licences and opening up all routes to whomsoever may desire suggests a kind of chaos that we find hard to fathom. We doubt, too, that the minister will find great sale for these ideas as currently presented.

Mikael Phillips, the opposition spokesman on transport, is not a likely customer. As expected, he is predicting chaos and is not convinced that the minister's approach will deliver improvement or yield the desired effect.

There is already chaos in the sector, which poses a significant public policy challenge. This has to be blamed on the lack of vision on the part of successive political administrations.

As some may cynically point out, the people charged with sorting out the system rarely suffer to the same extent as the general public. After all, we provide our politicians with luxury vehicles and they speed along the roads in air-conditioned comfort announced by the blaring sirens of their police guides. What do they know about delays and congestion and polluted air?

The remedies contemplated by Mr Montague, we believe, will inevitably lead to overcrowding of lucrative routes, thereby intensifying the rivalry among 'robots', or unregistered operators, and will certainly not result in an improvement in the fortunes of the state-run Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).

Priorities

Surely, one of Mr Montague's priorities is to complete the rationalisation of the JUTC by improving its efficiency, eliminating waste, reducing fuel consumption, and assuring commuters of comfort and safety. Scheduled service and fixed routes are what the public expects from their transport provider.

One of the major problems causing congestion on the roads of the nation's capital is the explosion of high-density residential complexes with little thought of how motorists are going to get in and out of these areas. Take an area like Dillsbury Avenue, in Kingston 6. There has been an explosion of development taking place there, and despite the saturation of multiple dwellings, there has been no commensurate response with new infrastructure. It is this congestion that triggers the kind of wild manoeuvres undertaken by public passenger vehicles as they try to eke out a living.

The explosion of cars, buses and other vehicles poses health risks to everyone. As of now, no one is really calculating the cost to people and the public health system caused by polluted air.

We welcome the fact that Mr Montague intends to test these ideas in stakeholder consultations over a six-month period. We hope that these conversations will have input from our best technical minds, for even persons who do not rely on public transportation want to see an efficient service.