While the Borough of Chaguanas continues to grow and attract new businesses, crippling traffic congestion remains one of its biggest challenges.
With that in mind, President of the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce Baldath Maharaj is hoping to begin talks with the Chaguanas Borough Corporation to tackle the traffic situation in the coming weeks.
“There’s a new company that will be on Factory Road, they already started construction. That will bring, I would assume, about fifty to sixty commercial vehicles in and out of Chaguanas on a daily basis, and then we are looking at employees. Those employees should number about two or three hundred, so the traffic going into Factory Road will be a lot more than what it is now. The issue is not really north to south, it is really east to west of the flyover. That is where you find the bottleneck, so by the construction of one or two overpasses, that should increase the traffic flow and reduce the congestion during peak hours.”
Mr. Maharaj says that while he has already informed Minister of Works and Infrastructure Jearlean John of these suggestions, a formal request is in the works.
Additionally, he said the Chamber will seek support from the business sector.
“I know those things cost quite a few million dollars, probably two or three hundred million. We will see whatever support we could get from the businessmen. In terms of the actual design, the design, by the way, is about ten per cent of the cost, probably more than that. We know there’s one that is being constructed on the east, and we expect that the next one, we will ask, to be constructed, or at least to mention or to start design, in Chaguanas.”