Dear Editor,
On several occasions I have mentioned that St. Maarten is not growing. This is usually in connection with the increasing intensity of the traffic. Lo and behold, what I have written in a few sentences in the past now appears in two articles from two different people.
Contrary to St. Maarten not growing, there is a threat of erosion and inundation in the not too distant future. It does not take rocket science to notice the obvious. How long have we been busy with the causeway? From then already the valid excuse for the necessity of the causeway was to alleviate traffic congestion.
If you check in your archives you will find letters from me suggesting the stemming of the import of cars and to regulate the public transportation, especially with buses.
I do not think the police should take the blame for traffic congestion. Let me start by stating that the police do not even have the amount of vehicles necessary to execute optimal surveillance of St. Maarten. There are some tasks that I would execute differently, but I am not the police brass, so I do not know what is behind it.
What I know is that I have a good idea of all that contributes to the cause of the traffic congestion. The majority of the roads in St. Maarten end up in a bottleneck; the unnecessary traffic accident caused by drivers not paying attention to the traffic because of the use of the cellphone while driving; oversized buses and trailer trucks; oversized dump trucks; time not regulated for garbage collection; irresponsible bus drivers; to name a few.
If anyone would take only 10 minutes to stand on one spot and pay attention how many cars go by with only the driver, including myself, one will notice that the ratio is 2 of 10. If our public transportation was regulated, by using public transportation a whole lot of people would save on the wear and tear of their vehicles. Not to mention the gasoline bill. This would help significantly to reduce traffic congestion.
Because the weather and natural disasters will always be a potential threat, the necessary steps have to be taken. Drastic situations call for drastic measures. We know the history of our kingdom and the capability of our kingdom partners. Did not the king just say that Holland is moving towards its sixth year with a surplus, where is the goodwill to cooperate with each other without resorting to “voor wat hoort wat?”
This has to be a page out of DJT’s book.
Russell A. Simmons
