Testing Tuesday - JUTC to try Mandela bus lane again

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) will have a second practice exercise for the dedicated bus lane along Nelson Mandela Highway, St Catherine on Tuesday. This follows the state-run bus company's initial effort last Thursday, which was marred by hiccups as traffic piled up along the high-traffic roadway.

The lane will be used for three months, beginning Friday, November 1. During the period, the west-bound leg of the dual carriageway will be converted to two-way traffic from Caymanas Bay to the Plantation Heights entrance from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays. The same applies from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., going in the opposite direction.

Marketing and communications manager for the JUTC, Clinton Clarke, said the setbacks were caused by curious motorists who slowed down to see the unusual activities.

"The difficulties basically included the fact that the public notification, I think, was insufficient. The thing came on pretty suddenly. However, even with the insufficiency, I believe that we have a culture that we need to try and curtail, and that is the culture that everytime we see something happening on the road, we make it a point of our duty to slow down in order to peek to see what is happening," Clarke said.

Despite that, however, Clarke said other potential impediments were discovered. "Of course, it was a dry run so we identified some difficulties and we are going to ensure that those are sorted out," he said.

Clarke said 69 buses were used during the trial run. One striking finding was that the units were able to go to Kingston from St Catherine and return much more quickly than usual. Under regular circumstances this would have been "extremely difficult".

The starting point for Tuesday's dry run, will be Central Village, unlike Thursday, when the buses started from the Caymans Golf Club turn-off.

SUCCESSFUL

Clarke said preliminary statistics proved that Thursday's trial run was successful. "We started out at 6:22 a.m. and we went up to 9 a.m. Between the hours of 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., the average time per unit was one minute and 20 seconds. Between 6:22 and 6:30 am, four buses used the lane. Between 6:30 and 7 a.m. 12 buses used the lane. Between 7 and 7:30 am, 13 buses used the lane. So an average of eight units traveled every 30 minutes westbound to Spanish Town. So we were able to improve the flow into Kingston and back to Spanish Town in a significant way," Clarke said.

Clarke said introducing a dedicated bus lane on the highway was long overdue. He said it is necessary because of the lengthy delay motorists currently experience due to tragic congestion. "The flow of traffic on Mandela Highway is atrocious in the mornings. It is horrendous in the mornings to get to Kingston. We at the JUTC are the major transporters of commuters from Spanish Town to Kingston, so we want to get people to work," Clarke said.

"We made the request of the Ministry of Transport and Works, the Transport Authority and the police to facilitate this bus lane so we can move people out of Spanish Town and into Kingston much faster than it occurs at the moment," he said.

He added that bus lane will also improve traffic flow in the other lanes.

Clarke assured Automotives that the bus lane will not be abused by private vehicles and other public passenger vehicles because it will be monitored by the police. "This morning (last Thursday), SSP Lewis and DSP McKenzie and a number of police officers were there, so we are going to police that lane. A truck driver was very facetious and went into the lane and the police went for him and sent him back from way up that roadback into Central Village and told him to go and join the line," Clarke noted.

There are no imminent plans to implement new bus lanes in other areas.