THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF MODERN TRANSPORT

THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF MODERN TRANSPORT

Traffic on the Churchill Roosevelt (Photo Esther Davis)

    The use of road transportation in Trinidad boomed in the 1950's when the Trinidad Government Railway (TGR) was beginning the process of disbandment. With the removal of the passenger rail system in 1968, the government began the utilization of the bus and maxi services with the same purpose of transporting large crowds of passengers to their destinations. The only difference between the trains is that road vehicles can manage high grades that trains, which requires a tunnel though a hill or mountain for access.

     However, as decades past, more persons began to purchase and drive their motor vehicles on the highways. The highways in the past, being a single two way road, making congestion all too common, therefore the highways were upgraded to dual carriageways. Although it relived the congestion at that time, it was not long term as presently, traffic persists on the nation’s highways. Although government proposes new routes and upgrading of existing road networks, it still does not solve the problem. We must go to the root of the problem, and that is there are too many motor vehicles that the road system can accommodate. Even if the highways are expanded to have more lanes, with the increase of motor vehicles on the roads, these upgrades would be meaningless.  

       

    There should be measures in order to reduce the congestion of the nation’s roads, such as utilizing and improving the public bus services, in that more buses should be purchased to accommodate the population, maintenance of the buses and improved time scheduling. Another measure would be the implementation toll installations on the highways, in that persons driving private cars would have to pay a fare to use the highway system depending on the number of persons in the vehicle while buses, utilized by the Public Transport Services Corporation (PTSC), would freely pass through. Recently, the Government gave the commencement of the construction of the Rapid rail project. This project has the ability of greatly reducing the congestion of traffic on the nation’s roads as trains can accommodate more passengers than a normal bus, to its destination in the shortest amount of time. It can be a success if the previous measures are implemented and when the local economy improves after we overcome the implication of low oil prices.



Reflection
 The photos were taken while travelling to the capital city of Port of Spain on the Churchill Roosevelt highway. While sitting in the traffic it seemed like taking a photo of the congestion on both sides of the highway would make for a wonderful blog post on the ways in which the modernization of transport can impact negatively on society.