Dear Editor,
In a city bereft of traffic signage the NO PARKING sign is outstanding in Georgetown, though not in an upright position, but rather because it can be observed by the motorist usually when it is too late or too close, to just about everywhere one has to transact business.
The most advertised customer-friendly shops, stores, banks, etc, have wantonly painted NO PARKING signs at their entrances and nearby spaces, which force the prospective motorised customer to retreat several blocks away, and then walk distances along which, not infrequently, an alert and sensitive taxi driver would offer a ‘lift,’ particularly if the target is a senior citizen, progressing slowly with unbalanced gait.
Getting to the bank can be a particularly challenging experience for a senior citizen. Even if the latter arrives well before opening hours, he/she still has to stand unsupported in a queue, which turns out to be quite meaningless once the doors are opened. The few banks which have services (however limited) for senior citizens inside their portals, seem to have overlooked any consideration for their vulnerable clients when outside their premises. In a rainy season, if perchance one owns an umbrella, make sure to carry it for protection and, of course, support.
NO PARKING has come to mean ‘keep moving’ and this admonition is taken so seriously by the Traffic Department that it dedicates one of its ranks full time daily to ensure that customers do not park in front of a certain bank. In fact so focused is their attention on NO PARKING that they close their minds to facilitating the flow of traffic when occasionally minor congestions occur on that particular stretch of roadway, so that normal traffic cops have been turned into ‘no parking’ rangers.
There was a time when the installation of the no parking sign, along with all other traffic signage, was the prerogative of the Traffic Depart-ment. However, this function seems to have been privatized in recent years, so that regardless of the circumstances, all no parking signs are now assumed to be legal, and transgressors can be prosecuted by the police, without any questioning from the citizen involved. For example, the younger motorist, as uninformed as the uniformed traffic watcher, is incapable of distinguishing between ‘parking’ and ‘waiting.’ Neither of the two would have read the Traffic Regulations – which contrasts with the diligence displayed in one incident where the driver’s licence requested by the rank was flauntingly read while held upside down.
The above apart, very serious consideration needs to be given to the increasing problem of no parking facilities. Just look at the headaches caused to minibus drivers and their passengers since the recent no parking arrangements were instituted in the Stabroek Market area – an unplanned, ill thought-out decision, which did not take full account of its consequences, including that of the (in)security of commuters during the late night hours.
Across the city business premises of various types are being erected. Yet the evidence suggests that parking facilities for the very clients they hope to attract, are given only cursory consideration. The more customers a business is likely to attract, the more certain it is that taxis will claim prior squatters’ rights to whatever parking space coincidentally becomes available, thus denying customers legitimate access.
In Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago for instance, restaurants and supermarkets amongst others, must include in their construction plans provision for customer parking. The practice of banks providing customer parking is also well established, since it gives that much of a competitive edge. Additionally, as in Barbados, there are a number of strategically located parking facilities particularly in the downtown areas – a few of them being multi-storeyed. There is a parking cost of course, but this has to be measured against that of the mileage done and time lost ‘moving on’ past no parking signs.
The situation is bound to worsen in Georgetown with the steady inflow of an increasing number of vehicles and commuters. The opening of the Berbice River Bridge can easily be anticipated to stimulate a greater daily volume of road transport, and a consequential demand for more parking space.
So where is the plan? One will certainly be needed for Carifesta X – to provide accommodation in several parts of the city where people will socialize, in addition to attending planned events. But the plan must also take account of future development and be integrated into a comprehensive vision for the management of road transport throughout the country over the next decade or more.
In this connection it is necessary to return to the matter of signage. The Traffic Department, in its myopic obstinacy, insists on marking their meagre instructions flat on roadways – which not infrequently are made virtually invisible, either by flood at one time, nearby overgrown vegetation at another place, and the absence of effective street lighting in too many instances.
The thinking that a motorist must arrive at a junction before he/she can detect a grounded STOP sign is not only nonsensical but positively dangerous. One doesn’t have to wonder why drivers (particularly public transporters), whether in a hurry or not, just speed past the STOP or NO ENTRY sign. Surely logic demands that such signage should be visible several metres before the approaching junction.
There seems to be a misguided presumption that most, if not all, motorists are familiar with the city’s layout, and that therefore no need exists even for a CAUTION sign.
Surely the Traffic Depart-ment should be sensitive to the alarming number of ‘unschooled’ new drivers on our roads, and must also be mindful about the safety of the reported thousands of visitors to our shores, who are unfamiliar with our uniquely instructionless traffic and, where they exist, colourless signs.
There is not a single GIVE WAY or KEEP LEFT/RIGHT sign anywhere. Bemusingly the radar gun is used despite the absence of speed limit signs.
Perceptive Carifesters will ponder how rural our urban areas are, when confronted with our animal-drawn vehicles and their occupants who refuse to recognise any sign whatever – whether it is stop or no parking.
By the way, how come there are no ‘NO TAXI PARKING’ signs?
Yours faithfully,
E B John
