OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Route 3 Maxi Taxi dri­vers have been grant­ed ap­proval to use the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route to Champs Fleurs in­ter­sec­tion for two months.

Route 3 maxi taxi dri­vers, or green band maxi dri­vers as they are com­mon­ly called, work the San Fer­nan­do to Port-of-Spain and the Ch­agua­nas to Port-of-Spain routes.

The tri­al use was ini­ti­at­ed af­ter an ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sue that pre­vi­ous­ly re­strict­ed them from us­ing the en­tire PBR, lim­it­ing them to en­try from the Barataria in­ter­sec­tion.

The maxi taxi op­er­a­tors are pleased, say­ing ac­cess to the bus route will ben­e­fit both them and their pas­sen­gers.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Route 3 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Vick­ash Kissoon­dath said, “Right now, we have ac­cess to this, it’s a tri­al pe­ri­od un­til the 18th of May. We can ac­cess from the Champs Fleurs in­ter­sec­tion to go in­to Port-of-Spain and to come back.”

He added, “Well ba­si­cal­ly, we had dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port and the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, to­geth­er with the Traf­fic Man­age­ment team in De­cem­ber. The agree­ment was that we did not want pass­es for all green band max­is; we just want­ed a pass sys­tem that al­lows them to func­tion and meet the same cri­te­ria as the red band.”

Kissoon­dath said af­ter the tri­al pe­ri­od, they should be able to ob­tain pass­es with the same cri­te­ria as the red band maxi while us­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.