Letter of the Day | Government needs to rethink transportation system

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Shirley Johnson, president of the Central Manchester Taxi Association, came up with the inane proposal that two schoolchildren should be considered one passenger from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., and between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

This, so soon after a 15-seater transporting 23 passengers (adults and children) crashed in Fern Gully, resulting in the death of two adults and a child and injury to five other passengers.

I am happy that Egeton Newman, president of Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), has shot down the idea.

I will not discuss the paucity of thought in this suggestion, but I am incensed that the leader of a taxi association could propose treating Jamaican children with such callousness, at least for part of the day. The child is a non-person. The child effectively becomes half a passenger or has to pay the adult fare.

When Dr Lucien Jones, vice chair of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), was asked to react to the suggestion, he reserved an opinion. I suppose that the gentleman was so shocked that he couldn’t give an opinion and chose to restrain himself.

SMALLER NOT BETTER

It is already an open secret that operators of 7-seater taxis routinely transport 8 passengers. They know more than the manufacturers and the insurance folk.

However, all the blame cannot be put at the feet of the taxi owners and operators. In fact, most of the blame falls into the lap of Jamaican governments from the early 1970s.

We expect our leaders to follow best practices of successful countries. Instead, we have gone down the route of Haiti and east Africa: smaller is better; faster is better. All out of greed!

You get more duties from importing smaller vehicles which consume more petrol so more from the gas tax. Our governments have not thought that if commuters can get to and from work in comfort, safely and on time, they will be more productive.

What in heaven’s name is a 7-seater doing on the May Pen-Mandeville, Santa Cruz-Mandeville, Christiana-Mandeville routes? Where in First World countries do you see that? And, even in Jamaica, look at Knutsford. When schools have contracts with transport operators, the smallest size vehicle is invariably a Coaster-type vehicle, but more often a much larger vehicle.

Here am I complaining about a 12 per cent increase in the price of honey when the government granted a 19 per cent increase in fares in the fourth quarter of 2023 and promised transport operators a 16 per cent increase in the second quarter of 2024. That’s effectively a whopping 35 per cent.

How could the government have got it so wrong? They didn’t realise that this would fuel inflation? The transport operators who wanted to hold out for the increase don’t know how an economy works. They wouldn’t even be helping themselves and their families.

Using smaller vehicles on long routes and in large urban areas has not helped the country. We are talking here about mass transit. When two vehicles have left a bus stop, you must see the difference in the number of commuters.

What Jamaican governments have done is destroy Jamaica’s bus industry, support the Japanese economy, cause Jamaican commuters to pay more and our roads and sometimes highways to be clogged with taxis.

They have also turned many transport operators into little better than captains of the Zong.

NORMAN W. M. THOMPSON