The torments of domestic travel
published: Wednesday | December 18, 2002
THE EDITOR, Sir:
WHILE TRAVELING through the Bog Walk Gorge recently, I waited impatiently for hours in order that an extra-long and extra-wide piece of heavy duty equipment could clear the Flat Bridge where it got stuck while negotiating a corner. During my impatient and inconvenient wait, most of my thoughts were on the pros and cons of Highway 2000 and the billions of taxpayers hard-earned money that will be spent to presumably make "TRAVELING easier". After we would have spent all that money, the problems that a significant number of us perpetually encounter on this major arterial St. Catherine road (almost daily) may be with us for a very long time.
Significantly, there are no land-locked parishes in our country and everyone has access to the sea. Historically, at some point in our not too distant past, most parishes had a pier or port of some sort and even though their re-establishment may not generate the type and volume of political employment that road-works bring, such facilities could complement our modes of transportation especially as an option for long-distance travel.
We should be able to learn from the ideas and examples of other countries where domestic travel via their waterways is practicable and economical. A good example is the old Italian city of Venice where everybody and everything (the police, fire engine, garbage trucks, public transport) go by water and it may be worthwhile if one of our globetrotting politicians could learn something on public transportation from them.
Admittedly, there can also be hazards to travelling by sea but at this moment in our country nothing can be compared to the risk of being on the same road with not only some of these trailers and trucks, but also with the hundreds of illiterate, indisciplined and ignorant taxi drivers, some of whose rabid temper and insecure motor vehicles can be aptly described as weapons of destruction. I do yearn for the day (and night) when travel across our country will no longer demand so much of one's time or patience and physical or mental energy.
