A line of traffic bottlenecks as it heads from Portmore, St. Catherine, onto Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, yesterday morning. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

With frustration boiling over traffic snarls on the Portmore toll road, community leaders are stepping up efforts this weekend to have residents sign a petition calling for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to address the situation.

Portmore residents have been advised that petition signings will be held this Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Portmore Mall, Greater Portmore Shopping Centre, and Portmore Pines Shopping Centre. The petition to the Prime Minister, among other things, requests improvements to Marcus Garvey Drive, where the three-lane toll road ends in a bottleneck.

"Residents are fed up because they were given many promises and guarantees that they would get to Half-Way Tree from Portmore in 20 minutes, but now they are spending longer times in traffic after paying their toll," an angry Curn Harding, president of the Portmore Joint Citizens' Association, said yesterday. "This must be the most expensive parking lot in the world!"

He said that "nothing tangible has changed" since the opening of the Portmore toll road in July last year, noting that residents still have to get up and leave their homes before dawn.

Improvements to Mandela

The petition calls for improvements also to Mandela Highway, where traffic from Highway 2000 causes a severe bottleneck on weekday mornings. In addition, Portmore residents want the Prime Minister to reduce the current toll rates, which start at $60 for class one vehicles, moving up to $200 for class three vehicles.

The public petition signings are organised jointly by the All Hellshire Leadership Council, Portmore Joint Citizens' Association and the Greater Portmore Joint Citizens' Association. The three groups will also hold a mass meeting on Saturday, January 27 at the Lions Civic Centre in Portmore, commencing at 7:00 p.m.