THE EDITOR, Sir:
IF YOU'RE ever planning to drive through Half-Way Tree particularly coming down through Hope Road heading towards Molynes Road, Eastwood Park Road or Hagley Park Road between the hours of 3.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m. better think again! Or, better still, give yourself an extra 30-40 minutes to negotiate the approximately 200 yards between Winchester Road (formerly Jamaica Broilers property) and Half-Way Tree Parish Church.
Ever heard of gridlock? This is where you'll find the 'mother of all gridlocks' in uptown Kingston!
What with the executive and other Portmore buses blocking the Half-Way Tree entrances to York Pharmacy, the Half-Way Tree Post Office, the Shell and Texaco gas stations, there's probably more cussing, bumping and boring and wasted man-hours at this cross roads than at any other junction in the city of Kingston particularly when the many high schools let out after 2.00 p.m. And it's even worse when you make the right turn at the Hagley Park/Maxfield Avenue traffic light and try to head up Eastwood Park Road past Burger King. Now that South Odeon Avenue has been closed off to become part of the Half-Way Tree Bus Park (in 2008, mind you, two-and-a-half years from now!) there is pure chaos any time after 3.00 p.m. every working day!
South Odeon Avenue used to be an 'escape valve' for traffic leading to Constant Spring Road and Hope Road from Eastwood Park and Molynes Road. But now that all these vehicles are funnelled the extra one hundred yards or so further up to North Odeon Avenue by Burger King, the result is a backlog of traffic jamming the top of Hagley Park Road outside of York Plaza and backing up all the way up to Hope Road/Winchester Road sometimes even as far up as to the traffic lights at Trafalgar/Hope Road.
GRINDING TRAFFIC
And how has all this gridlock of traffic in Half-Way Tree impacted on business in the area? "Just terrible," says Mr. Garth Moodie, managing director of York Pharmacy Limited, and manager of the Strata corporation operating York Plaza. "Our customers are now afraid to venture into Half-Way Tree and have begun to desert us in droves for fear of getting caught up in the grinding traffic. Business is down over twenty percent, as customers complain of wasting time in the traffic and of not being able to get into or out of the parking lots on both Half-Way Tree and Hagley Park roads.
This Odeon Avenue Transport Centre has already been a curse to our business and to think that we have to wait until 2008 (two and a half years from now) before it is completed, it is not very encouraging! I believe even businesses as far up Eastwood Park Road as Central Plaza Springs and Twin Gates Plaza have even been affected!"
So, what's the solution to all this 'mother of all gridlocks' in Half-Way Tree? The planners and politicians will just have to go back to the drawing board to decide how to relieve the pressure on traffic in Half-Way Tree and relieve the suffering of the
business voters and their customers who will surely not forget when election time comes around again in 2007/8!
I am, etc.,
A.R. PINNOCK
Worker in Half-Way Tree
