A traffic solution for Barbados, including the busy Warrens area, is as easy as ABC, but the highway which goes by that name should not be main focus of it.
That’s the view of St. Lucy MP Denis Kellman, who said he was “sick and tired” of suggestions that the ABC Highway should be the centre of the island’s traffic woes, saying attention needed to be paid to the minor roads feeding into that main artery, which stretches from St. Michael to Christ Church.
Building flyovers was not the solution either, said the CARICOM ambassador.
Speaking in the House of Assembly during debate on major road works across the country, he said:
“As much as we continue to talk about the ABC Highway we are really fooling ourselves in here when we believe that the only solution to the traffic problems is to continue to expand that road. Every time you add a lane you add twice as much confusion and it is time that we recognise in here that the solution to the traffic problem cannot be the expansion of the ABC Highway, but the building of parallel roads,” he suggested.
“We cannot continue to attract traffic to one road. We need to build roads to take traffic off the ABC Highway and that is what is happening. We are in here all the time talking about the ABC Highway as if this is the only solution and the more you talk about it and the more you look at it from the time the ABC Highway was built you had traffic confusion, from the time it was expanded it got worse.
“There is no need that we continue to put traffic in Warrens when there is no need for the traffic to be at Warrens. We need to find side roads to take the traffic away from Warrens. If we do not do that all we will get is confusion.”
Kellman urged authorities to focus their attention on a number of roads, including as far as the St. Thomas Parish Church in an attempt to solve the traffic problems.
“I honestly believe that it is time that we recognise that when you get to … the St. Thomas Church that you widen that road through Content and you bring it down Cane Garden and all those roads, then when you get to Warrens … that instead of coming to get to Prior Park you have to come Warrens roundabout that you need to go through the development and put yourself into Clermont,” he said.
“Also, it does not make sense to have a road that leads to Collins (Warrens) and then on the other side of the development you can stand and see from one road to the other but yet still you can’t traverse. It is time that we connect those two roads and take the traffic off.
“Also in Arthur’s Seat when you go in by the (One) Accord building we have to find a way to put an exit onto the Arthur Seat road and take that traffic off the Jackson Road. If we do not do these things we will continue to have confusion.”
The MP said the problem was most pronounced during evening rush hour.
Kellman also said flyovers were not the solution because they kept traffic on the highway. (SC) (Barbados Today)
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