The mayor also answered another vexing issue for city residents: the traffic lights that haven't been working for weeks at the Mahogany Street junction. Now, all of Central American Boulevard is the responsibility of the Ministry of Works - including those lights - but today the Mayor proposed that maybe lights are not the best idea:
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City Council
"We don't have the system to support traffic lights. And it's very expensive to maintain. The parts are not obtainable in Belize city. So I favor the round about. And actuaclly when the central american bulivard is upgraded. There is plans for a round about in that very vasinity. But ofcourse we've been trying to source the part for the traffic light. So that we can repair it. But every single traffic light that is in Bleize city has malfunction at some point. And when you have a round about. It's a far easier thing to operate. And it's far less maintainance. So my personal view is that you are likly going to see additional problems with more traffic lights. And where trying to move away from that system."
Another issue on the Boulevard has been the Belcan Bridge which has not been swung in some time. According to the City Council staff, the motor was stolen some time ago.
Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City Council
"One of the things that we would want to do is to toll the Northern Highway. There is provision in our law that provides for the tolling of streets, and we're not moving ahead with that until we have started subtantial work on the Northern Highway, but that's a very sustainable finance vehicle, so that we could pay for that project together with many other projects. Our manifesto talked about a commuter tax, and what we're looking at is - it didn't specify what form that tax would have been - but what we're looking at is having an inbound toll, so people who come from the north of Belize City, who don't pay property taxes, or don't license their vehicles in the city, but they use our services, they then would be caught by that toll because it's only going to be inbound."
Jules Vasquez
"These are what they call exorbant communities, Ladyville and Hattieville. These are necessary communities. I am saying that it has a punitive effect on people who've gone to live there."
Darrell Bradley
"Well, it can't be punitive if you get value. The idea is that we want to upgrade the Northern Highway. We've been tracking the business development along that stretch of road, and it's significant. The toll is a very modest toll; we're looking at something like $1 inbound for the regular type vehicles. Your value is that you will get an A-class road. Part of our research looked at the loss of productivity. It takes somebody right now, one hour at certain times in the morning to drive from Ladyville to the center of Belize City. We've tracked that there are 4,800 people who use that road every single morning. That's 4,800 hours of labor we lose by having people just sit in their cars. That's a loss reflected on our GDP, and it's a loss of productivity. If we were to improve the road, and have a nominal toll on it, we could reclaim that, and we suspect that we'll be able to shorten the time to about 20 minutes."
Email
Print