Garth Rattray | Our highways should not be a luxury

Despite the Internet and our ability to have many forms of telecommuting, banking, marketing, teaching/learning, consultations, meetings and medicine, modern society demands great mobility. Many of our major roadways that link large areas of our island began as mere tracks. They were for walking, travelling with load-bearing animals, and, as they became wider, for travelling on drays and carriages.

Tracks became narrow pathways, and small, minimally powered motorised vehicles used them. Over time, those rudimentary roadways were incrementally rehabilitated to accommodate larger, heavier and faster vehicles. As our needs grew, so did the roads, and new networks of roads were constructed. However, we outgrew the simple, winding roads that carried us long distances between the north and south coasts and the east and west of the island.

Even when our motor vehicle density was nothing like it is today, even when more drivers adhered to the rules of the road, crashes occurred regularly, especially on narrow, potholed, uneven, winding and slippery roadways. Our major connecting roads also challenged us with sharp corners, breakaways, sheer and/or dark precipices, narrow rocky passages and steep hills.

A female colleague related to me how terrified she was when she received very bad news about her health. Despite the bad news, she decided to look on the bright side when she narrowly escaped serious injury from an oncoming and speeding minibus as it careened around a sharp bend on the Junction Road. She prayed for her life, and then she noticed a sign written across the top of the [leaning] minibus’ windshield, which read, “Count Your Blessings!”

PRONE TO CONGESTION

Our major country roads are also prone to congestion from slow-moving trucks, timid drivers, crashes that obstruct traffic, and rocks/soil rolling off the hillsides and into the roadways. Some places become submerged whenever the rainfall is heavy. It is always an adventure to drive to rural areas, and you should thank God immensely for your safe arrival. Dawg nyam yuh suppa if there were a medical emergency and only those winding, undependable and potentially dangerous roads are available. We badly needed highways.

Our prayers were answered with the East-West (partial) highway and then with the North-South highway. Well, to be more accurate, the prayers were answered for a minority of Jamaicans. Our highway operators chose a very economically advantageous way to charge fees for vehicles. They charge based on the height and length of vehicles. “Class 1: Height not exceeding 1.7 metres and length not exceeding 5.5. Class 2: Greater than 1.7 metres high: length less than 5.5 metre or less than 1.7 high and greater than 5.5 long. Class 3: Greater than 1.7 metres high: length greater than 5.5 metres. Class 4: Two-wheeled or Three-wheel bikes”.

Because of this vehicle classification, a pickup, like the Toyota Tundra, ends up in Class 3 and pays the same as a fully loaded, 18-wheeler truck hauling many tons of aggregate or cane or whatever. If the fee structure is based on the expectation of surface wear and tear, obviously, a pickup could never wear the surface as much as a huge and very heavy truck. Additionally, some light pickup trucks weigh less than some heavy high-end motor cars, yet they will end up in Class 2 and pay more than the heavier cars. So, either the huge and heavy vehicles are getting away with murder, or the tall, long but lighter crossovers, SUVs and pickups are being murdered.

LUXURY ITEMS

Everybody knows and understands that the name of the game is profit on investment in the highways for the owners/operators. But with the high fees being charged, the highways are being offered to the motoring public as if they are luxury items, occasional indulgences for one’s pleasure, satisfaction, or ease. When I do one round trip, only once per week, in a mid-sized pickup, between Caymanas and St. Ann, it will set me back $332,800 annually. That is one-third of a million dollars for travel once per week. When the rates go up as intended, it will cost me a phenomenal $443,560 annually. Those travel costs do not include fuel. Heaven help those who must commute often or daily.

The price increase is so scary that one of our popular and seasoned news journalists made a Freudian slip when he said, “The toll increases are in-heavy-table”. In order to mitigate the financial burden of travelling on the highway, I, like several other commuters, enter and/or exit the highway at various points to reduce the cost. But that comes at a separate cost and with other problems. The regular (old) roads are rough, pitted with unexpected potholes, or veritable crater clusters. The battering, wear and damage to the tyres and front ends of our vehicles can be significant. And the chronic danger or traversing those roads remain; no one has seen it fit to make them smoother or safer for the majority of drivers who simply cannot afford the toll roads.

Our lives matter. Highways are much safer than the alternative routes. I can’t understand why the owners/operators have never tried reducing the rates significantly for a week or two and have the government encourage drivers to use them to see if the reduced fares will attract a lot more traffic and increase the current revenue. Highways are necessities; they should never be luxuries only affordable by a minority of our citizens.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.