Emergency meeting seeks solutions to traffic trouble
(CNS): Just a few weeks after Cayman’s students returned to school, traffic on the roads has reached some of the worst congestion levels ever experienced here, especially for drivers coming from and going to the Eastern Districts. Planning and Infrastructure Minister Joey Hew held an emergency inter-agency meeting last week to find solutions, such as staggering work times and introducing school buses for private schools.
“With the growth of communities in the Eastern Districts, increases in the number of cars on our roads and adjustment of school start times have come challenges, such as increasing traffic volumes and congestion, increasing travel times, and growing road safety issues,” Hew said as he explained why the meeting was needed.
“These [issues] are affecting the quality of life of our people and I have therefore asked the relevant stakeholders to find short and medium term solutions as we continue on track with some of our long term plans,” the minister added.
Attendees included representatives of the Ministry of Commerce, Planning and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Education, the Department of Education Services, the National Roads Authority, the Portfolio of the Civil Service and the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service.
Hew said at the meeting that while various solutions are being considered, a holistic approach has to be taken to include carpooling, incentivisation of alternative transport, limits on importation of older vehicles, a comprehensive public transportation system and complete streets that will accommodate vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.
The education ministry is now planning discussions with the Private Schools Association to explore a school bus system for the more than 4,000 students at those schools, who are largely driven to and from school in cars.
Chief Officer of the Portfolio of the Civil Service Gloria McField-Nixon said that her agency aims to get public sector bosses to promote staggered start times for staff working at the Government Administration Building under the Work Hour’s policy. “We will remind managers of the 2012 policy and have them encourage wider take up of the existing offerings, including by those departments not operating from the Government Administration Building, where feasible,” she said.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) is working on more direct plans to tackle traffic congestion, such as the reversing of the travel lane capacity along Marina Drive and provisions for Prospect Drive to have two lanes westbound, which will be implemented in mid-October.
Two other projects expected to start this month are the widening of Rex Crighton Boulevard and Shamrock Road. The Rex Crighton project will involve the expansion of the existing east and west bound travel lanes between the Poindexter Road Roundabout and the Chrissie Tomlinson Roundabout, where the section of the roadway will have four lanes.
Shamrock Road will be widened into six lanes, with the initial focus on developing a westbound third lane between the Red Bay Roundabout and Grand Harbour Roundabout.
Ongoing work to ease traffic congestion already underway includes the Mango Tree Connector, Olympic Way and Island Heritage Roundabout.
Some of the long terms projects which are expected to start before the end of the year include the planned extension of the Airport Connector Road from the roundabout to the George Town landfill on the Esterley Tibbetts Highway to Sparky Drive in the North Sound area, extension of Godfrey Nixon Way and the East-West Arterial from Hirst Road to Lookout Road in Bodden Town.
Officials said that the NRA is currently in discussions with the National Conservation Council about the East-West Arterial route.
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Category: Local News
How about the feeder from selkirk to Hurleys.
They said ages ago compulsory acquisition of the little piece of land needed to complete it
Stupid idea
You ain’t seen traffic yet!! Just wait until 3 mega cruise ships tie up to our new dock and unload 18,000 people at 7:30am!!!
Can we have a vote of no confidence as well as a referendum on the port? Alden and co are so far out of their depth you would think the island was already under water from sea level rise!!
And don’t forget all the vehicles related to the new 50 storey building.
that type of development would reduce traffic not increase it.
How about fewer cars and no port? Seems like an easy way to ease some of the traffic.
We need to have two lanes on each side of the road from the Bobby Thompson traffic lights up to Linford Pearson. The fact this hasnt happened makes no sense.
Not to mention the road through the horse farm
Ask Roy why it hasn’t
1. Are more school busses really the solution? Every time a bus has to stop to pick up or drop off children, traffic has to stop in both directions. This causes long lines of cars to form behind the bus. More busses would surely only add to this problem.
2. There seems to be many children in the Private Schools who are genuinely concerned for the environment… they should be imploring their parents to form regular car pools. I can’t tell you how many cars I see with one adult and one child inside (except for all the ones with tinted windows). Many of these cars are leaving from the same neighbourhoods, at the same time!
3. I totally agree that the 8:00 am start time for Govt schools has compounded the problems this year. 8:30 or 8:45 would be much better.
4. What would also help would be larger, more efficient public transport bus service.
5. Perhaps Cayman Helicopters should expand its fleet and offer a shuttle service from the Eastern districts to GT? 🙂
6. Perhaps Govt should re-explore the building of a High School in West Bay?
Watched a school bus, fully loaded, blaze through a red light by Delworths at 730 this morning. Won’t be putting my children on them. Will you Joey?
Great points and maybe more bike/pedestrian lanes along with a high speed island wide ferry and a tram service. We could offer travel cards that would cost e.g.$10 a day an include all forms of transportation Island wide. Lets move forward to 2040 and a population of possibly 100K people and no transportation plan then we’ll be looking like Bangkok. So now is the time to implement a plan that’s for the longterm future.
Non Caymanian households must be limited to ONE vehicle.
Only if Caymanian families ( ie mothers) are limited to one child
Caymanian privilege 8:35? Why not for everybody on island?
Will gladly give up our cars for voting rights or status to give a voice to the majority of the island and create a real democracy to invoke change
get out of here with your ignorant comment! Maybe if we offered a legitimate public transportation system, we could all use one car and be more efficient and get the kids to school and us to work on time!
Changing working hours will help but is not going to solve the situation. Unfortunately it is the school run traffic that is the major cause and was evidenced by the easy flow of traffic during the Summer months when schools were out. We need traffic lights at all major roundabouts (granted the one in South Sound is useless but that’s because there are no other lights installed on the Hurley’s roundabout or Kings). Lights will solve the problem and keep things moving and also help cease the bad driving on roundabouts, the lack of use of indicators, which is also another big cause of traffic as drivers don’t know when to enter the roundabout.
Lights won’t do it either. Over 100,000 registered vehicles on a small rock with two main roads. Put all the lights in you want, still gonna have traffic.
The only way to cure bad driving is to ensure the driving test is rigerous.
-Limit the amount of vehicle imports close to zero
-Develop an Uber like app for bus drivers (use cs:go platform) so we can track drivers real time
-Introduce emission controls because if you measured pollution at rush hour it would be some of the worst in the world as all our cars are unregulated
-Going forward, an incentive system for carpooling, purchasing electric, limiting cars per household
-Reduce taxi rates. They are insanely overpriced.
-Consider a ferry service to connect the other side of the island.
If you don’t do at least one of these suggestions within a few months, I can guarantee it will have a profound negative impact on everyone who lives here.
People who have more suggestions write them in a reply and we will solve our own problems and suggest options to them since they are doing nothing, (or at least it seems that way in our current state).
Someone needs to make driving instruction 60% about roundabout and indicators and how/when to use them because 90% of people on this island do not know how to use the damned roundabouts.
You know what would be fantastic???? IF THE POLICE DRIVING AROUND THE ROUNDABOUTS USED THEIR INDICATORS!!!!! I was lucky enough to share the road w/ 3 different police cars in one week- not a single one used their indicators ONCE!! How about they start to do what we are all supposed to do!??
The time, money and energy wasted in this matter will come to one conclusion and that is to build more roads leading to a bottleneck. XXXXX This is what happens when you have an inept government with no balls to do the hard things and are easily distracted and fixated like children who get an idea and the tantrums fly when there is opposition. I can solve your traffic issues especially for the East side of the island. Stop building roads that lead to the Hurleys roundabout and start building roads that BYPASS it all together and create a second option to go straight East.
the solution is obviously to build more high density developments on swamp lands everywhere…and make sure each 2 bed unit has 3 cars parked outside…
the only way is thru the wallet. make public transport free and double the price of gas.
re the bottom line, it would make more sense to have a $2 toll for personal vehicles which would subsidize the public transport tickets
Singapore has the right idea. Ensure you have a good public transport system, including cheap taxis while at the same time making the ownership of a vehicle prohibitively expensive.
We do not learn from places like Singapore and Bermuda because we are a brilliant people.
Listen, I understand journalism is not as easy as it seems, but it would be nice if the media in Cayman would do at least a little work and not just copy and paste government press releases (to be clear its not just CNS, Compass did the same thing). Ask some questions, don’t just copy and paste.
Firstly, what does ‘reversing of the travel lane capacity along Marina Drive’ mean?
Secondly, Prospect Drive generally runs north/south, so what on earth does ‘Prospect Drive to have two lanes westbound’ mean???
Thirdly, were maps/layouts of the proposed works provided? If not, why not?
Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but reading two identical articles in two different media outlets, with no work done to explain or contextualize, just got my blood boiling.
CNS: Our one and only journalist for this site wrote twelve stories yesterday. Asking questions takes time and we are working flat out, and are therefore unable to spend time on every story. Everyone has ideas about how we should do more – and we would if we could – but most of our regular readers understand that we are severely constrained by time and resources.
I sincerely apologize and take back my criticism of CNS. But what’s the Compass’ excuse? They have like 50 reporters and managed to do just as much work as CNS’ one!!!
The Compass can’t even manage to spell check, let alone ask appropriate questions! (but good point)~
Perhaps we need to make some of the major arteries toll roads at certain parts of the day, and allow those vehicles with two or more occupants to use the non-toll lanes? Traffic seems to be comprised of mostly single-occupant cars. This might be useful on some of the approaches to major roads at rush hour.
Where has this government been for the last 5 years? Where is the plan to manage traffic? The only reason the West side of the island ‘s traffic problems got addressed was because Dart did it and then had legal battles against the changes.
Everyone knows the East end morning traffic is often backed up to Boddentown and has been so for years and what has been done? Nada. The government has been fixated with the port ignoring infrastructure woes such as roads and the dump.
Oh and increasing the population will fix the problem…not. Any fix is years away and the problem will only get worse. Thanks Alden and Moses.
Yes, just imagine the traffic with 100,000 plus population. DUMB.
“Ongoing work to ease traffic congestion already underway includes the Mango Tree Connector, Olympic Way and Island Heritage Roundabout.”
The work on the Island Heritage roundabout is causing congestion, not fixing it. How does it take over a month to repave a small 2 lane roundabout? Why do days go by and we dont see any sign of progress, or even workers on site?
EXACTLY!! They closed the lane July 1st. It’s almost October for crying out loud! I pass by there every day between 7:20-7:40 am and not a soul on site! Then around 4 pm you might find two people there. GET IT DONE NRA!!!! It should not take 3 months to repave a roundabout that you just repaved a year ago!! How about the gov’t make these workers do a few over night shifts to get the job done so we can have our roads in full working order! The snails pace is getting ridiculous!
Easy solution Remove alden and his idiotic Government from power! Save our island and it’s people! I mean all including his no use opposition who are just as bad anyone who does protect our environment needs to go!
The problem is that the political alternative is no better.
The removal of this rinky dink government is now imperative it is their expansionist policies that has led to this terrible situation with traffic! now they come with their panic and emergency program like they honestly care? Now they preach false solutions and now use it to cause further destruction to our remaining eco system and fragile environment. Do some recall our Dear Leader being call upon on to do something on a local radio program about the amount cars being imported into this little island only to be told this is the price of progress and he couldn’t do anything to effect or revenue stream and finally everybody coming here have the right to drive and own a car. Yes folks that was our great leader contribution to the problem then now his stooge calling emergency meeting with those who don’t have and ingling how to fix it and in fact part of the problem. Start reducing our population thus limiting the strain now place on the infrastructure and environment Cayman its not rocket science? Cayman is not for everyone!!
There’s little point in doing anything east of Grand Harbour if you don’t deal with the logjam there. And put in a proper bus system already – should have been done ages ago, and if the routes are done properly kids can take the bus to school.
I wonder if the Government has really study the traffic issue to really know what is the real culprit .. it sounds like they are going to try/do this and that and hope that it fix the problem .
Joey will fix it. Hahahahaha
Just like he fixed THE DUMP.
And the illegal vendors!
Traffic was never this bad before they changed gov’t school starting times to 8am! Why couldn’t they leave the starting time @ 8:30am and finish at 3:30? Who in the hell would complain about school finishing later? No one. But the government’s brilliant fix was to congest traffic to unbearable levels just to start school half an hour earlier. People leaving home mins to 6 in the morning and still can’t reach town before 8! You all should be ashamed of yourselves. You have teachers working 10 hours a day because they get to school before 7am and don’t leave till 5:30pm most days. My mid-semester, you really think burnout wouldn’t have kicked in? What kind of quality education are the children getting then? You all seriously need to think things through and stop dreaming some foolishness up and getting up next day and implementing it without any serious thought going in to it.
This happens all the time; we should be used to it. Politicians and ministry officers make decisions and force on-the-ground staff to implement them, and never consulted with said staff to find out if it is even feasible.
I have NEVER seen a Caymanian or Jamaican teacher stay on a regular basis till 5.30.
There is no question that the school traffic this year is MUCH MUCH worse due to the new starting times of the government schools. It’s not too late in the year to change it back to 8:30. This is a mistake which can be easily rectified.
Emergency meeting? This has been a well know problem for some time.
1. A second capital neees to be created in the eastern districts and some of the government services need to move to that location.
2. School fees need to be established to cover the cost of the additional roads and the road changes needed to support the school traffic.
3. The private sector needs to look at staggering work hours where possible and the possibility of some staff working from home some days of the week.
I am actually laughing. More to come. From many directions.
A true pro-active leader who will fill the Honorable Premiers shoes when he steps down. Our Unity Team goverment is the greatest in the world!
Cayman islands Government does not have the necessary skill, experience, and mental fortitude to fix any problems that come up in modern times. The dump, the docks,the roads, the schools…Nothing is being fixed. Its all being “worked on” by people who have no clue how to do it but are getting paid well. This is third world. Without the expats to keep things running this country would have failed a long time ago. It might already have failed financially but no one can figure it out. Plan accordingly. Things are not going to get any better and will slowly get worse over time.
Why don’t all of these politicians stay at Morritts for a week…heck I will pay, because none of them live out here(aside from Ezzard) so that they can feel our reality. Waking kids up at 5AM is not right.
So many solutions.
Not enough skills.
East End Bodden Town North Side is growing. New roads are needed, and no blow joe importing a old junk car to sell and make 500 dollars needs to stop.
Heck you can even import a car older than 10 years okd in Jamaica and check out their duty.
people in cars complaining about traffic?…….you can only laugh….
whoever decided to put goab in gt should be sued for gross incompetence
these stupid pedestrian crossing are a pain in the ass too… who thought these up? Basically what you have is a steady duck like stream of people crossing the road blocking up the traffic, especially outside government house. Sure create public crossings… but tell them when to ‘walk” / ‘don’t walk’… so people cross simultaneously. Jeeeezus…. it’s not that difficult to figure out!
There are two simple things that would make a big difference: 1 implement/enforce the rule that you can’t enter an intersection until your exit is clear. Too many people go on green even when they can’t get all the way across so the intersection itself fills up with vehicles trying to go every which way. 2. Public transport. Proper reliable air conditioned buses on timetables and routes. 40 people on a bus is 39 fewer vehicles on the road.
Don’t block the box!
Since Ivan all the government has done is make money from vehicles flooding the island, everyone making money and slowly causing gridlock. Well……congratulations and welcome to gridlock. Like I always say. Somebody somewhere not doing their job.
Typical Cayman politician. Calls an emergency meeting. Invites the press. Look at what I am doing to solve the problem. Yeah, the problem you should have solved before it became a big problem. Go back to selling janitorial supplies Joey Who. You aren’t up to the task.
No traffic in West Bay to town. Perfect!
I am sorry but roundaboutsies are NOT the answer. The problem is that ALL the traffic is attempting to get into GT all at the same time.
Roundabouts allow for the free flow of traffic.
In high traffic areas they also cause traffic jams by NOT regulating the amount of vehicles in any one area at a specific time.
Hence with the roundabouts ALL the traffic gets stuck and pile up in one area, GT, which has a knock on effect at Spotts.
If you control the amount of traffic IN GT with stop lights, and along the route into GT, then by the time the next set of traffic heading into town gets to the next light the previous traffic has had time to clear.
Simple. If you try to pile it all into one area then it can’t clear fast enough for traffic.
Bobby Thompson way? Any news on that? And how can I drive across the entire island on a Sunday evening (any many other days) and back, yet I don’t see 1 single Police car?
100,000 population? No matter how many roads you put in, that artificial target, if forced, will break the infrastructure.
Reminds me of an overweight person just focusing on purchasing larger and larger clothes to meet their widening waist line. Focus on policies that will slow down the growth of cars. (Vintage year requirements, roadworthiness checks, etc.).
If MLAs actually LIVED in their constituencies they might have a clue.
flyover at hurleys roundabout
Scroll down in this article to the discussion on teenagers’ circadian rhythms and how schools in the UK are adapting by starting later. Note the impact this is having on student achievement.
Doable if we have sufficient school busses for all schools.
Would require some adjustments on the home front but possible obviously as it is already being done elsewhere.
This alone would dramatically cut congestion.
https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/international-solutions-student-problems.html#aId=0fb3744f-42fe-4d24-a979-9fa5d10641c9
As we go for 100,000 plus population flyovers all over the island are not the answer.
Agree 100%. The ONLY solution to the Hurley’s roundabout is either an overpass, or a road that bypasses Grand Harbour (which there is now no room for, due to the narrowness of that part of the island and the new developments). There is no congestion once you get past the Hurley’s roundabout so that is the main issue which needs to be addressed.
Overpasses may not be “quaint” or “pretty”, but that part of the island never was once the roundabout was built, and the solutions tried so far are only making things worse.
People who claim new roads don’t help need to try to remember the traffic nightmare from West Bay a few years ago. Now that there is a 2 lane highway which goes all the way west, it’s almost smooth sailing even during rush hour.
First of all there is no proactive police force, always late, always retroactive!
then you have to do the following
1. Create a reliable Bus service ( reliable and Busses not Mini vans with actual bus stops )
2. get heavy equipment Trucks etc of the road from 7-9 am and 5-7 pm
3. stagger office hours and school hours
4 .by now the bus system should be working ,now you can implement laws limiting Cars !
5 .like other small countries i.e. Singapore people have to pay when they want to drive in congested areas inclusive taxis ,delivery vehicles and also politicians and CEOs no freebies and strict Enforcement .
And get your police force out there to do their job , stop every bus from stopping and blocking traffic every 2 meters . ( ugh what am I saying such a big voter block can’t tell them to obey the law)……….
politicians with no guts ……..
More bike paths are a wonderful idea but this requires enforcement from the police farce. Ever pass by Canal Point on a Saturday? Cars parked in the bike path and never any with tickets on their windshield
Too much expats in Cayman with cars. Cayman should implement the same policy as Bermuda. Expats not allowed to own cars. There are now over 77,000 people living in Cayman and they want to build a cruise dock?
The policy in Bermuda is not just for expats. It’s for everyone. One car per household (a household being determined by the tax paid on a building / so if two apartments paying tax then 2 cars allowed). So if you want the same rule you would pay an annual tax on your property & only have one car even if you are ‘born & bred’ Caymanian
Only #1 from your list will work. Should work,I’d say,taking into account that nothing works as intended here.
Don’t confuse your government’s mind with the rest. They have no mental capacity to even comprehend it. Let alone implement, maintain and enforce.
Build overpasses for Pete’s sake. Start training drivers, support, mechanics, build garages for public buses and hire Canadians that helped Bermuda with Public bus transit system.
Enough talking!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The solutions are obvious and simple. Public bus system +overpasses.
Until the traffic jams on Walkers Road are resolved, building the Hirst Road extension, for example, will not help.
two approaches staggered times and move some of government larger organizations out of town
anytime i hear the term stakholders i put my head in my hands…..its just govt entities sitting in talk shops trying to make themselves sound important
More people could work from home, but this seems to be a major obstacle.
the only solution is decentralise from george town…..starting with govt departments.
it will ease congestion in gt and improve the economies and property values of the eastern districts.
win-win.
Stop inventing a bicycle!
#1 Public bus system. #2 Overpasses at bottlenecks. Simple like that.
The world has invented it centuries ago ! It works all over the world! It works, it works,it works!!!
Stop widening roads! This is not the solution, this is IDIOCY! 🤬
We cannot have overpasses all over the island as CIG aims for 100,000 plus population and unlimited importation of vehicles. Simply will not work on a dinky island.
good ideas, but can you imagine how long the overpass would take NRA to build??? Three months for a repaving of a roundabout and it’st still not complete! How would we get around that if they wanted to build an overpass? hhmmm
Not to mention a thing will probably collapse because the geniuses who head up the department aren’t actually engineers.
But that’s the current thinking of the current government, bigger is better and solves all problems from traffic to headaches to stain removing in the washing machine.
Many years ago a committee of local businessmen produced an excellent common sense report….newspaper headline was ” Decentralisation is their battlecry “.
Totally agree. CIG should build/rent facilities for back office staff and other smaller customer interfacing staff to work in the eastern districts.
from the folks who banned ride-sharing apps in cayman ….go back to sleep joey
from the guy who says more roads are not the answer but his only answer is more roads….go back to sleep joey.
from the guys who increased the taxi rip-off fares….go back to sleep joey.
from the guys who do take forever to do nothing but talk….get lost ppm.
Remember how he solved the problem with illegal vendors on our beaches?
#JOEYWHO poor guy thinks he is the next leader of ppm
You know what else is weird? There is no way to get to Selkirk rd in red bay from, say the caybrew building or even the esso. Why is that? Fix that too.
Learn how to find and use Hurleys round-about..that is why it is there
Roundabouts were created by the devil. Get rid of them.
Roundabouts actually work really well IF they are used correctly.
So now I have to go all the way up and add to the congestion at the Hurley’s roundabout just to get back in to the area where I live if I want to go and visit a friend who lives on Sellkirk and say I live by the seafarers association? You must be part of Joey’s team with your genius ideas.
Minister Hew we can’t wait for weeks down the road. We need some instant fixes now. Why not give the large companies with most the staff like government, banks, supermarkets, etc, an incentive like a reduced fee by allowing them (mandatory) for flexi time or stagger the work hours. Stop talking and let’s start implementing some quick fixes.
Putting thousands of new cars onto Grand Cayman roads simply is not sustainable. Think about it. There are limits to how many roads one can build on a dinky island.
Exactly…and you want to reach a population of 100,000? Not smart.
there are limits how many people can live on this island without corresponding and timely infrastructure upgrade
Needs to be a limit of cars definitely. A household with 4 people that has 4 or 5 cars is not right.
Get a real reliable bus system, not mini buses that pick and chose when they pick up, stop off etc. And that runs consistently to the eastern districts to 9pm regularly.
And remind the mini-buses that their terminal is by the Library and NOT by Cable & Wireless at Eastern Avenue but I guess they are looking out for their own.
Studies have shown more lanes doesn’t solve traffic.
Those who found alternate transport due to the traffic will then put their car back onto the road when the additional capacity is installed.
This is why our 2 laned roads that were upgraded to 4 have met capacity within weeks of being completed. Not to mention the countless bottlenecks that still exist.
Hah, hah,hah! You wanted more people. You still want even more people! But you are so retarded not to timely upgrade infrastructure to accommodate the growth. You continue being a laughing stock by widening roads to nowhere, piling up higher your waste and demanding quick fixes.
The fix will start with the total overhaul of your inept government. Until then prepare things to go from bad to worse!
P.S. It is not up to Joe to implement “ flexi time” and reduce fees. What fees you are talking about? It is mind boggling how inept people are.
lol
Staggered working times will have no affect on 95% of our civil servants who have always turned up at 9.30am and left at 4.
E X A C T L Y!
7:25 pm, that comment is B.S.
Your round-a-bouts is causing major traffic congestion. Left North Side 5:45am didn’t get to town till 8:20pm….that is just beyond comprehension. The traffic has always been a problem Island Wide, it is just getting worse!
roundabout in improve traffic flow. fact.
Not here. Only reason WB Rd is jammed in the morning is people avoiding the Butterfield and AL Thompson Roundabouts which are the main bottlenecks.
If people know how to use them first of all!! People please use your indicators. That 3secs pausing to figure where the next vehicle is going to either go straight ahead or around goes really far back. So add 3secs to each car in a line of traffic about 5k cars is alot of time.
a big problem with roundabouts is that a lot of drivers simply dont care. i was driving around the AL Thompsons roundabout on saturday and a driver came flying round on the outside and almost took my family out trying to exit towards camana bay