A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage

Jun 04, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – A controversy arose in the 1932 American presidential election campaign when critics of Herbert Hoover said that he had previously promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. As it turned out, Herbert Hoover had never actually made such a promise, but the label stuck and it led to Hoover’s defeat.

In his address on Guyana‘s 58th Independence observance held in Linden, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali did not call for a chicken in every pot. Rather he spoke about a Guyana in which everyone could own their own vehicles.

If this were to be achieved it would allow Guyana to surpass even America where nine out of every ten households own a vehicle and one in every 5 has as many as three. While the vision of every person in Guyana owning their own vehicle may be idealistic, it is not a realizable goal. High levels of poverty persist in the country. According to the poverty line for high income countries, more than half of the Guyanese population is considered as poor. How will all these poor people be able to afford the cost of purchasing and maintaining a vehicle? Vehicle ownership involves not just the initial purchase price but also ongoing expenses such as fuel, insurance, maintenance, and repairs.

A few days ago, I was at a petrol station and observed that the drivers of three out of every five vehicles purchased on average about $3,000 worth of petrol. It tells me that many persons cannot afford to fill up their tanks regularly. The costs of properly maintaining vehicles are beyond the reach of many Guyanese citizens, particularly in rural areas where income levels are generally lower.  This renders the possibility of universal vehicle ownership an unattainable objective.

It is also not practical for every person in Guyana to own a vehicle. From an infrastructure and economic standpoint, this will create an onerous burden on the state. The current infrastructure is inadequate to support a significant increase in the number of vehicles using the roadways. Having every person own their vehicle would mean, over the long-term, as much as a half of a million vehicles on our roads, since some people will have more than one vehicle.

All of the pittance that we are receiving from the oil companies will have to go into building infrastructure to support such a massive fleet of vehicles. The rapid growth in vehicle ownership would necessitate continuous and costly infrastructure upgrades, which the country will not be able to sustain financially. Therefore, instead of pursuing universal vehicle ownership, a more feasible approach would be to invest in improving public transportation systems, which could offer a more affordable, sustainable, and efficient solution for the population.

It appears however that little thought is being given to developing such a public transport system. No attention is also to reducing the number of vehicles on Guyana’s roadways. If you monitor the traffic flowing over the Demerara Harbour Bridge each morning during peak hours, it will be observed that most vehicles have one or two persons.

If a higher toll fee was charged for vehicles carrying only a driver and one passenger, it would encourage car pooling or the use of public transport, thereby reducing the flow of traffic over the bridge. If the Joe Vieira Park was used as a massive parking lot and persons were encouraged to park their vehicles there and use a shuttle system across the bridge and into the city, it would significantly ease the traffic woes. It would also be an ease on the pockets of commuters.  If an express light rail was established to bring persons into the city from designed points on the East Bank of Demerara, West Coast of Demerara, West Bank of Demerara and East Coast of Demerara, it would ease the traffic woes. You can move as many as 1,000 persons at any one time, thereby reducing the need for vehicular traffic.

The government, however, has developed a master road infrastructure plan. Like so many other things, this plan is being rolled out without the full plan being made public. As such, it is not certain how this plan is going to contribute to improving communication in the country. In this context, President Ali should seriously revisit this vision he has about every person owning their own vehicle. This is not necessarily a desirable thing. Already we see certain negative developments because of the rapid growth of vehicular traffic. The more vehicles on the roads, the more accidents are occurring and this will inevitably lead to more read injuries and deaths. Secondly, persons are losing valuable man hours in traffic congestion thus undermining production and productively.  Thirdly, having to navigate the traffic woes in urban areas has begun to lead to road rage.

While the President may mean well, he should seriously delete from his political wish list the idea of Guyana every Guyanese owning their own vehicles. This is neither practical nor desirable. It would be much better if the President focused his attention on ensuring Guyanese can afford a chicken in every pot. Now would not that be nice? (The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

 

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• Demerara Harbour Bridge, Guyana’s, Herbert Hoover, President Irfaan Ali

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