Anyone who has headed in the general direction of George Town between 7.45and 9am recently must have noticed that the traffic problem has gotten worse.
In the past, saying Grand Cayman had a rush hour was a bit of an exaggeration; these days we know exactly what many big city folks are talking about when they use the term.
When it can take 15 minutes or more to travel one mile, the word gridlock should become part of the national vocabulary.
As bad as the traffic situation has become, things look like they’ll get worse before they get any better.
With many ‘Ivan cars’ repaired and sold inexpensively and a steady supply of affordable used imports from Asia, there are more cars on the road here than ever before.
There are also more children in our schools than ever before, and more parents driving them to school in the morning.
The situation will only be exacerbated in the coming months when central George Town becomes clogged with tourists during the peak cruise ship period.
Most of the traditional ways of dealing with traffic problems just don’t seem to work here.
Public transportation in Cayman isn’t the most reliable and is unappealing to many people.
No government has the mettle to try to limit the number of cars here.
Car-pooling is virtually unheard of.
Riding a bicycle is too dangerous and walking is apparently an alien concept.
The only answer seemingly left is to build more roads.
Unfortunately, with all the pressing post-Ivan needs of the country, there’s no where near enough money to build the miles of roads needed to ease our traffic pain.
There could be one other solution, however, if the government were willing to lead the way and offer incentives.
Staggered work hour programmes have helped with traffic problems in many jurisdictions all over the world.
The concept is simple: employees of an organisation start and end work at different times. Some could start as early as 7am and others as late as 10am. By staggering the start of residents’ working days, no particular time period gets overwhelmed with traffic.
Government could use the system in civil service and perhaps offer some sort of a fee incentive for participating companies and/or individuals.
This might take an adjustment for our society, but no more than the frustrating, time consuming and fuel wasting one we are experiencing on our roads right now.
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