Editorial | A bigger transport plan

There is value in Daryl Vaz’s proposed 100-day plan to arrest the chaos in Jamaica’s public transport system. But as good, or even necessary, as this short-term initiative might be, a more important project, this newspaper believes, would be a comprehensive, 20-year integrated master plan for the ground transport sector, to be executed in, say, five-year chunks.

Developed in partnership with other government agencies, as well as private sector and civic society stakeholders, that plan would cover matters such as:

• Policies for the structure/ownership of the public transportation system;

• The regulation and use of private vehicles;

• The design, management and maintenance of the island’s road network;

• The relationship between public transportation and energy use and, therefore, energy policy;

• The impact of national security on public transportation, and;

• How transportation (public and private) interface with, and influence, national economic outcomes.

In essence, what we now suggest to Minister Vaz is what we proposed to his predecessor, Audley Shaw, when he assumed the transportation portfolio 15 months ago, and before then, to Mr Shaw’s predecessor, Robert Montague. We get why this big, overarching approach to public transportation never appeared to command their concentrated attention; it is difficult. And Jamaica’s transport ministers of the past four decades have been so busy poking fingers in the holes to prevent the collapse of a shambolic system that they have had too little time to address the big picture. Further, but for a period that saw the 1998 establishment of the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), they have judged it to be too politically risky to seriously offend a loud, and potentially disruptive, constituency.

ATTEMPT TO BALANCE

Mr Vaz’s plan, therefore, will likely attempt to balance these perceived political realities with the genuine concerns of people who use public transportation, especially those in the Kingston Metropolitan Region and the urban sections of the parish of St Catherine. Combined, they account for around half of Jamaica’s population.

Commuters in these areas, as others elsewhere in the island, mostly depend on the tightly packed route taxis that hurtle along the streets of the island’s cities and towns, their drivers seemingly oblivious of traffic regulations as they compete for passengers who pay regulated fares that are below the real cost of the service.

At the same time, the government provides over J$11 billion in subsidies (J$7 billion in direct grants) to the loss-making JUTC, which transports only a relatively small fraction – mostly city dwellers – of the island’s commuters. Among the JUTC’s expenditures this year will be nearly J$1 billion for 50 new buses, five of which are electric, and another J$61 million on spare parts to refurbish out-of-commission fleet.

These are all good things, as is any effort to instil a sense of order in the shambolic system commuters are forced to endure. However, Jamaica’s public transportation demands a far more comprehensive fix than what is implied by Mr Vaz’s proposed 100-day plan.

That starts with a clear recognition of the critical importance of transportation to economic activity and people’s well-being and, therefore, an arrangement for how that service is delivered, by whom, and at what cost to commuters.

GRIND TO A HALT

If people cannot get to and from their jobs, for instance, businesses and production will effectively grind to a halt. Transportation also facilitates citizens’ ability to enjoy recreation. What Jamaica has been unable to figure out is how to fashion a system for people to commute efficiently, in relative safety and without psychological trauma. There are over 30,000 vehicles licensed as public passenger carriers, around two-thirds of which are route taxis. But perhaps a similar number of route taxis operate illegally as those that are formally registered.

This chaotic system, allied with people’s concerns over safety – from the operation of public transportation and crime – increasingly helps to drive private vehicle ownership, which, in part, contributes to the more than US$300 million the island spends in importing cars. Then there is the cost of spare parts and equipment for their maintenance. Additionally, there is the cost for the fuel that powers the vehicles.

For instance, of the 22.3 million barrels of oil Jamaica imported in 2021 at a cost of over US$1.6 billion (J$246.4 billion), approximately one third was used in ground transportation. On the face of it, a good public transportation system, with appropriate supporting policies that discourage the demand for private vehicle ownership, would help to stanche a substantial amount of this outflow of foreign exchange.

A road infrastructure that allows the efficient movement of vehicles, while also encouraging safe pedestrian traffic, would similarly enhance commuter satisfaction as well positively impact the economy.

But doing these things, if Jamaica were so inclined, would require planning and include difficult conversations and tough decisions, leading to execution. The easy way is to believe that nothing can be done and things cannot change. That, though, is not necessarily how the thing is set.