Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 27, 2016 News
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure has begun a Sustainable Urban Transport study for the Capital City of Georgetown. According to Chief Transport Planning Officer at the Ministry Patrick Thompson, the project will be undertaken by two companies, Logit Consulting of Brazil and GSB Plus from Colombia.
The team met with officials from the Georgetown Mayor and City Council last week at City Hall as part of the consultative process for the project.
According to Thompson, the Ministry hired the two firms to conduct the study. He said that the City is the major stakeholder and over the next few months the team will be going back and forth discussing recommendations and proposals the consultants will come up with.
The study started on October 17, 2016 and is expected to continue over the following nine months. Thompson said that the consortium has already had a start-up meeting ,whereby a number of important stakeholders came together for initial discussions.
He said that these stakeholders included the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Central Housing and Planning Authority and the M&CC. He said that since the start-up meeting in October, the group has met with the Traffic Department of the Guyana Police Force and the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
According to Thompson, meeting with the TVET council was to facilitate discussions on institutional changes. Moreover, he said that it is believed that the TVET council would have a major role to play in the implementation of driver education programmes.
Thompson said, “In the course of the few days we will be having meetings with the Bureau of Statistics, Bureau of Standards as well as some other major stakeholders.”
During the recent meeting, Thompson said that the project is aimed at targeting mobility challenges within the city which includes non-motorised transit.
Deputy Mayor and Acting Mayor of Georgetown Sherod Duncan, during discussions told the team that one of the major issues as it relates to transportation, whereby there is a grave disregard for obeying traffic regulations.
“The minibuses I think add to this by the very reckless way in which drivers operate; the speeding and not obeying traffic rules, jumping the traffic lights. A simple thing when traffic is blocked up, you don’t block an intersection. So I think it’s not only just a physical issue in terms of roads and infrastructure, but its law.”
One of the issues which came up in the discussions was the zoning for minibus operators. The Deputy Mayor highlighted that some of the routes have been deviated from by these operators, which has contributed to the traffic woes, since there are additional vehicles traversing restricted streets causing congestion. He said that the problem is not the presence of regulations but rather the strict enforcement.
Additionally, Duncan said that traffic management as a whole is an issue which the team needs to look at. He said that the traffic department of the police force needs to collaborate with the City department. According to Duncan, to tackle the transport issue in Georgetown there will have to be greater synergies established between relative departments.
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