Government and its ministries are working towards solving the traffic congestion issues Barbadians travelling along the Ronald Mapp Highway are faced with on a daily basis.
This was revealed recently during Parish Speaks – St Lucy, which took place at the Daryll Jordan Secondary School on Thursday, January 25, 2024.
it is no sense having a car if when you have the car you can’t get to where you want to go on a small island
The traffic congestion issue was highlighted by a St Lucy resident who expressed his frustrations surrounding the traffic signals recently installed at the Royal Westmoreland intersection of the Ronald Mapp Highway, also known as Highway 2A.
In response to his query, Technical Officer in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Water Resources (MTWW) Jason Bowen said that the MTWW was aware of the issue, however, they were various factors which led to the installation of the new traffic signals.
“We are aware of the issue relative to the congestion that is being caused at that location but we always must look back at the history of the junction where they were numerous fatal accidents and the traffic signals were mainly placed there to mitigate the fatalities that were occurring at that junction. But we will continue to look at the timing and phasing.”
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who revealed that she also encountered the congestion issue at the stoplights while en route to the town hall meeting, told Bowen it would be a difficult task to eradicate congestion in this area, but it was not impossible.
“As I tell my Cabinet everyday, difficult is not impossible, challenging is never impossible. I’ve heard the people here, I think that everybody echoed [it], so please let us get a review. Government is here to solve problems and right now a lot of people live in the North, a lot of people depend on Highway 2A but we’re also going to have to have another conversation.”
Prime Minister Mottley continued by noting an increase in cars over the past 30 years, which she believes also contributes to this issue.
“How many cars are there in Barbados now? About 140,000? When I came into public life 30 years ago, we were told at the time that they were about 80,000 cars.”
The Prime Minister also revealed a project entitled ‘Bim In Motion’ which is spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw which has as its focus traffic and road issues as well as increasing public transport.
“I know that your Minister is trying to have a major change with a plan called ‘Bim In Motion’ starting to look at the traffic issues and the road issues and the combination… and increase and augment public transport.”
She added that Bradshaw will be overseeing a set of engagements this year to hopefully get to the bottom of how best they can solve this.
“We are going to have to have a serious conversation as a nation about the issue of traffic because it is no sense having a car if when you have the car you can’t get to where you want to go on a small island; and therefore, there will be multiple solutions and there will probably have to be a major set of engagements throughout this year that the Deputy Prime Minister will lead to begin to get to the bottom of how best we can do it.”
