EDITORIAL

Building More Roads Not The Only Traffic Solution

Monday, July 19, 2004

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Reader comments:

• The time has come for both the public and private sector employers to seriously consider flexi-time for their employees.
  
  Why does every one have to work from 9 am to 5 pm? We need various hours of "starting times", so everyone is not on the roads at the same time and also we need various hours of "quitting times" to allow a staggering of the employees on the roads going home in the evenings.
  
  This is the best utilization of our roads. And here, again, Government can lead by example.
  
  As you so wisely point out, we only have a certain amount of land in Cayman. Building more and more roads is not the answer. We need to find ways to better utilize the existing roads. 
  
  A natural spin off to this will be shift system at schools, where some students attend school in the morning and some in the afternoon. This way, we get twice the use from the school buildings, because we can't keep on building more and more buildings either.
  
  But the bottom line is we need to acknowledge that we can only accommodate so many people on this tiny piece of land called the Cayman Islands. To allow a population explosion is to open a Pandora's box full of all manner of evils - Direct Current
  
  
• Perhaps Cayman should take note of how Bermuda handles the traffic problem. Bermuda does not allow rental cars for tourists. The only thing a tourist can rent is a put-put motorbike. They are all encouraged to take a taxi, small tour van, tour bus, or even a horse and buggy ride to get to their destinations safely. We drive on the left, and for most tourists, this is risky business especially when they don't know where they are going or what to do in a roundabout. The difference between Bermuda and the Cayman Islands is that Bermuda DOES NOT cater to slackness with their laws. My visit to Bermuda some years ago was peaceful and memorable - A Caring Caymanian
  
   
• A good public transportation system would help alleviate our traffic problem, and for the life of me I can't see why we are not investing in one. But we also need the Health Dept to launch a campaign educating people on the benefits of walking/riding to and from work. The Chamber of Commerce could get in on the campaign and assist the employers in giving out rewards to those employees who leave their cars home and walk or cycle in to work. Also, one can promote car pooling.
  
  It can be done and it would help alleviate our traffic problem, parking in town problems, pollution problems, etc. As it is now, we are playing catch-up. We build more roads, roundabouts etc, but as soon as that is built we are faced with more car imports and a new generation of drivers on our roads. Where will it end?
  
  We obviously have to limit the amount of cars coming in to Cayman, and the amount of cars that are on the road at any one time. Restriction is the key to car imports. Right now any Tom, Dick and Harry can bring in cars; you don't need to be a car dealer to do so. We need to tighten up this area, and impose some form of restriction in car imports.
  
  Education is the key to the amount of cars on the road… hence the health campaign of walking to and from work. It can work. It just takes planning, co-ordination and a good incentive for the motoring public to want to leave their cars parked at home. A heightened sense of health awareness coupled with the chance of a reward from work just might be incentive enough for some citizens, as well as a feeling of doing your civic duty to alleviate a national problem.
  
  Why isn't the UDP looking at these practical solutions instead of spending money we don't have on roads and more roads and more roads? We only have a certain amount of land space, so we need to maximize the use of our land. Instead of having five cars on the road with one person in each car, have one bus on the road with 15 people in it. That's maximizing your roads - Direct Current

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