Premier Wayne Panton has apologised to commuters who throughout today have spent hours stuck in long traffic jams, caused by the closure of the main thoroughfare in George Town for Pirates Fest activities.
Panton, who said he had also been stuck in traffic for over an hour, called the situation “unacceptable” and said steps would be taken to address the issue as soon as possible.
He said future road closures for events would be re-evaluated to ensure road users “never have to suffer this again”.
The traffic jams began early Friday morning, after Seafarers Way was closed the night before. According to a police statement on Thursday about the scheduled closure, it was planned that the road would remain closed until 10am Sunday morning.
In a message, the premier said, “Tonight, thousands of you are suffering; stuck in an inexcusable traffic jam. Like many of you, I have been in traffic for the past hour and fifteen minutes; barely able to move.
“As Premier, I take responsibility for this situation, and I sincerely apologise to all of our commuters who are having to endure this.”
He added, “While we do not know exactly what has caused tonight’s logjam, we certainly believe it has something to do with the Pirates Week road closures around central George Town.
“We apologise; I apologise. This is an intolerable disruption to your lives as you try to commute home on this Friday evening.”
Motorists have been flocking to social media to get updates from other drivers on whether traffic has cleared in sections of roads and to query if there had been accidents.
One driver said it took him two and a half hours to drive from South Sound Road to West Bay Road, a journey that would normally take under 10 minutes. Another described taking an hour to drive from Margaritaville on West Bay Road to Kirk Market.
Other motorists said they had left their cars and were walking home, after being stuck in traffic literally for hours.
Many called for scheduled road closures during rush hour to be abandoned.
Panton said road closures “clearly only compound the problem of the unrestricted importation of hundreds of cars every month”.
He added, “We have got to get on top of this situation a lot quicker and I can promise you that we will be moving fast to try to address this problem.”
The premier said he had been on the phone with Commissioner of Police Derek Byrne and the government is working with the Pirates Week organisers to determine what can be done to relieve the traffic situation as quickly as possible, “even if that means inconveniencing some of the vendors”.
He added, “We will re-evaluate the approval process for road closures and make sure you never have to suffer this again.”
In a mea culpa to the public, Panton thanked people for their patience, and added, “once again I apologise. I’m not even going to ask for your understanding. I just want you to know that I apologise on behalf of the government, on behalf of myself because I take responsibility for this.”
Listen to the premier’s full message here:
Related Videos
This was entirely predictable. In fact it was predicted. The organisers of Pirates Fest announced last night that we should all work remotely today. That assumes that everyone is able to work remotely. The level of arrogance here is offensive.
That’s great. How does he feel about days when there are 3-4 cruise ships in port and people I know can’t get to work because of the crazy back ups? It’s not just Pirate Fest sir…
Closing the road was only part of the problem. Another is the lack of parking in George Town. This forced cars to spend time looking for a parking space and this also slowed down cars just trying to get through.
He SHOULD take responsibility for this.
As usual, government waits until a problem develops, and then tries to. figure out what to do about it. This should have been anticipated by which ever ministry is responsible for closing all those roads.
Time and time again road closures in central G.T. for social functions which could be held elsewhere, have caused massive gridlock. The police who never seem to learn are responsible for authorising these closures and are never seen out and about to see the results of their incompetence. If the police helicopter had been launched yesterday they would have understood the chaos they are responsible for.
Mr Panton, the resolution to this problem is simple, no more road closures on these arterial routes.
NRA can also model the effects of road closures (the reverse of what they do to model putting in a new road). Which could help to identify better places to hold events, i.e., roads that can be closed with less impact. Or to confirm that we have hit ‘peak cars’ and any road closure is going to have a domino effect.
But at least, judging from the comment that part of the problem was so many people trying to find parking, we can be reassured that Pirates Fest was successful. 🙂
I think it’s good to beautify the town but the idea of taking out the main street leading from the waterfront wasn’t a great idea given the fact that there are much more cars on the road and where parking is concerned takink out all those parking spots compounds the parking woes in the town.