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Highway urgently needed
Posted On 12 May 2014
Comment: 0
Dear Editor:
The highway to Point Fortin is sorely needed. The level of traffic congestion in these part is of epic proportions, with people spending hours on the roads trying to reach their final destination. Traffic, as a negative by-product of a nation’s progress, has a debilitating effect on the wellbeing and quality of life of citizens. More importantly, it negatively affects the productivity levels of people stuck on the road for hours. People have to get up early, spend hours on the road, losing important time that they could be spending with their families. This could be contributing to broken homes, to health issues, extreme stress and all the negative consequences that come with this. Additionally, people who drive to work for hours reach to work in a tired state. They cannot function at their optimum best, and this lead to a drop in productivity levels throughout the workforce. What this does to the economy is to increase the cost of goods and services. For example, if it takes two hours to build a wall, and now it takes four hours due to a tired worker, the cost of this wall goes up! In short, this leads to an increase in the price level of the wall, which by definition is inflation.
Just look at the inflation levels during the periods of 2002-2010, when traffic levels became a bane of this population. There seems to be is a positive correlation between an increase in the price levels and an increase in traffic. One of our universities should undertake a programme of research to ascertain whether this holds true and what is the true cost of traffic to our country.
This government’s emphasis of increasing the road network efficiency is paramount to the quality of life in the south west region of the country . Children want to see their parents in the morning and at night; parents should not have to leave home before sunrise and return home after their children are in bed. This highway would help people live more meaningful lives. Please build this highway, I am sure the citizens of this region would rather be productive.
Ricardo Jimenez
via email
