Dear Editor,
By now I believe that your readers know whatever I put on paper is not for my personal satisfaction but it is usually reminding those in government that they are there to serve the people. So many of us did it. and we know that it can be done in the right way. There is always enough to share. Greed should be the motivation to do whatever has to be done.
Mr. Luciano Nicholls ends his letter to you stating that he is working “with” the members of the Party for Progress who are members of parliament in hopes to amend and bring the aforementioned laws forward to the modern day, I am trying to comprehend the motive behind this letter. First, what Mr. Nicholls writes about was published on September 23, 2022, and was expected to go into effect on December 1, 2022. I believe that there was ample time to address that in order that those involved would have had time to adjust to it, if whatever the desires were/are were amended and granted.
That to me is not efficient. I am neither sure for what reason those members of parliament mentioned are using Mr. Nicholls, whereas they themselves are in a position to query the concerned minister about it.
And then to top it off, your editorial of November 30 also deals with the density of traffic and illegal parking, so I am still not sure where they intend to find the space to make room for the kind of progress Mr. Nicholls is referring to. Mr. Nicholls mentioned the dimensions of vehicles and stated that that was then, but it is not only the size of the vehicle that counts. He forgets he needs an adequate road to drive over with those vehicles. He is not taking the width and condition of the roads in account.
The room for progress that I would like to make is the hours for those delivery trucks which park in front of any place of business that they have to deliver stuff to, and at any time. I would suggest that that be done between 10:00pm and 6:00am. I would even go as far as to mention A.T.H. Illdge Road from Prins Bernhard Bridge up to Madame Estate. It is so bad that it even affects the purpose of the traffic lights by the bridge.
Since I mentioned that, did anyone notice how many places of business there are on that stretch without adequate parking in front of those businesses? If I counted correctly there are 13 places of business on that stretch of road.
I will continue by mentioning that in my opinion, even though we might need the type of heavy equipment which is being driven around the island, our road infrastructure cannot accommodate that kind of heavy equipment which is presently used here. They are literally a traffic hazard. We also do not need them in the hills.
Suriname is 64,000 square miles and the capital Paramaribo is 70 square miles and up to today they only use coasters for public transportation and other transportation. School buses, church buses. Only the military uses bigger buses than the coasters. Heavy equipment is escorted by the police and preferable during the night.
I do not think Mr. Nicholls made an in-depth study of the traffic on St. Maarten before writing that letter to you. I would suggest that he talks to some of the people at the Kadaster and VROMI [Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – Ed.] to get a better idea of what can and cannot be done. I am not an expert but I have an idea where to turn to and how this should go in the right way. Progress should work for all of us and in the right way. Speed limit is one thing, reckless driving is another thing, and those heavy equipment drivers like to show that they can handle those vehicles, but I will repeat, the roads on St. Maarten cannot accommodate that kind of driving with those heavy equipment.
Russell A. Simmons
