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A CITY OF FOUR QUADRANTS

Feb 11, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Traffic control in Georgetown is no longer a simply a problem. It has long passed that stage; it is now a crisis.
This crisis is not simply due to the increase in the number of vehicles owned by residents of the city. While there are many homes in which the occupants have more than one vehicle, there are still thousands of homes in the city in which there are none. The occupants of these homes use bicycles, motorcycles, public transportation-hire cars and buses- and/or walk.
The crisis with traffic control in the city concerns the large numbers of vehicles that traverse the streets of the city each day. This is therefore essentially a problem that has to be addressed by social engineering.
By expanding the number of business in the city, by allowing influx of vending on our streets and pavements and wherever else they exist, by increasing the number of squatter settlements in an already overpopulated city, the authorities have either willingly or unwillingly created monstrous social problems, amongst which is traffic control.
The large numbers of businesses that have opened in residential areas, some approved and some not approved, attract an increase in vehicular flow. The more business they are in a small city, the greater will be the congestion and today this is what is exacerbating the problems of traffic control in the city.
There is massive influx of vendors into the city each day. The number of legal and illegal vending amount to thousands and this creates a demand for transportation into, around and out of the city. This adds appreciably to the number of vehicles being used in Georgetown which is an extremely small city.
Georgetown was always overpopulated for its size.  Some wards are densely populated. Instead of reducing this overcrowding, the problem has been increased by the lack of action to prevent increased urbanization. The problem is being compounded by widespread squatting in the city for which no action. This squatting has also increased the demand for transportation, this more vehicles.
The authorities have recognized the problem with traffic control. But they have missed the fact that this problem is now a crisis.
Last December, it was promised that this year the city would have been divided up into four quadrants so as to promote greater traffic control.
This is an excellent idea because Georgetown is suited to such a proposal. The streets of the city are designed in a grid-like fashion.  Therefore it is going to be fairly simple to design the quadrants.
It is proposed to begin consultations on this plan next month. However, with a little more than two weeks before the month of March commences, the public is yet to learn about the specifics of the quadrants and how this affect traffic in each particular street in each quadrant.
Consultations obviously can only be meaningful if those being consulted know about the specifics of the plan. It was therefore expected that by now some announcement of the proposed plans would have been made public. The specifics of the proposed plan therefore needs to be unfurled.
But will dividing the city into quadrants provide a permanent solution of traffic control, indeed if any at all? If the businesses continue to balloon, if the squatting problem is not arrested and if illegal vending is allowed to continue, it makes no sense implementing any plan to  design the city into four quadrants.
There has to be a moratorium on the establishment of new businesses in the city. The laws prohibiting businesses in residential areas, also, must be rigorously enforced. But if you do this, then illegal vending and squatting also have to be tackled. It makes no sense dividing the city into quadrants if the increase in businesses is not curtailed.
Georgetown cannot and should not have any new business places. It is too small a city for so many businesses and it is creating disorder and confusion in the city.
Solving the problems of traffic cannot be divorced from the problems of urbanization, illegal vending and squatting. If these problems continue, then demarcating quadrants in the city will not solve the crisis in traffic.

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