Mandela Highway traffic fiasco
Published:Saturday | November 2, 2013 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
The Government, in its attempt to force the residents of Portmore to use the Portmore toll road in order to collect enough money, has made the alternative Mandela Highway as inconvenient as possible, especially during peak hours. It's an absolute nightmare.
They have compounded the situation by using one of the two lanes as a JUTC bus-only lane. This has only made matters worse as traffic now only travels at less than a snail's pace during peak hours to and from work.
This two-headed traffic monster on the Mandela Highway starts at the intersection of Municipal Boulevard, also known as I-95, in Portmore and Mandela Highway, merging with that stream of vehicles travelling easterly from the direction of Central Village.
The other head of the monster is playing hardball with the non-JUTC buses, which now have to use the only other lane available to all vehicles. This plan is not working. It's simply chaos.
A journey between Six Miles and White Marl in peak-hour traffic used to take half-hour; now it takes up to an hour.
This is a government which boasts that it cares for poor people. It's a classic example of the authorities hijacking, or in this instance, road-jacking, one set of motorists, forcing them to use the toll road as Mandela Highway is no longer a viable alternative.
The poor users of the road are so stressed. No wonder productivity is so low and commuters are so crass!
Just-retired Senior Superintendent of Police Radcliffe Lewis and Dr Lucien Jones of the National Road Safety Council must be pulling their hair out as they watch the magical figure of 240 traffic fatalities slip away.
In all of this, the elected Government refuses to put in the third lane on both sides of Mandela Highway - from Six Miles to José Marti Technical - as it continues to milk Portmore toll users.
LEONARD COWAN