EDITORIAL -Dealing with gridlock downtown

This newspaper readily applauds any measure that aims at efficiently handling the day-to-day operations of the nation's capital, and indeed all other municipalities. The Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC), which is charged with managing the city's affairs, has not been a model of efficiency and its various organisational and managerial shortcomings are well documented.

With various complaints of obstruction and sometimes reckless and indiscriminate use of the road from folk who do business in the market district, the KSAC was obliged to turn its attention to handcart operators. Faced with the challenge of how to enforce order while trying to facilitate all the persons who make their livelihood in the market district, the KSAC is mulling over how much handcart operators should pay for registration. Presumably, this is to be charged annually.

But some announcements have the whiff of chaos surrounding them. And this one does. Try as we might, we cannot see how implementing this registration fee will contribute to a more efficiently run and orderly city. In fact, the opposite outcome is anticipated, for in order to regulate compliance, the KSAC will now need to employ additional resources, and this additional layer of bureaucracy comes at a cost. The KSAC is hardly the poster child for healthy finances and we have heard repeatedly about the cash crunch facing this body.

NOT FOR INCOME GENERATION

But the KSAC has pointed out that the registration fee is not an income-generating exercise. We believe it borders on the ridiculous to anticipate that handcart operators will readily hand over a fee when the State is unable to collect income tax from some of its well-heeled professionals. So the big question in measuring efficiency is this: How will the additional resources expended by the KSAC in collecting these fees relate to the output?

All the transgressions attributed to the handcart operators amount to flagrant disregard for traffic laws. There are already rules and regulations governing the use of public thoroughfares. If the police are now not able to enforce these regulations, who will be charged with enforcement after all the colour-coding is done?

We have come to this in downtown Kingston because curbing the lawlessness that exists in the city has never been a priority of the KSAC, or the police, for that matter. Instead of taking decisive action against persons who disobey the law, they have been allowed to continue 'hustling'. The result is that vending has got out of hand.

Let's get this right. Kingston needs a long-term policy horizon, not a Band-Aid solution to congestion, disorder and chaos. Clear and precise signage is needed to guide motorists, pedestrians and other users of the road. Everyone should obey traffic rules or suffer the consequence for disobedience. The cost of erecting signs and educating commuters has to be determined and a decision made as to how it will be paid for.

We submit that trying to squeeze a $3,000 fee, or whatever other figure is arrived at, from handcart operators is not the way to go.

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