SASCHA WIL­SON

Come Oc­to­ber 1 there will be more changes to the traf­fic net­work in San Fer­nan­do.  

Speak­ing at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion’s Statu­to­ry Meet­ing , May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo an­nounced that part of Pointe a Pierre Road, one of the main thor­ough­fares in­to the heart of San Fer­nan­do, will be be­come a one-way.

  Ve­hi­cles head­ing along Pointe a Pierre Road to­wards High Street will be re­strict­ed from pro­ceed­ing fur­ther than Short Street.

This means that ve­hi­cles pro­ceed­ing along Pointe a Pierre Road will now have to ac­cess High Street from Short Street, Mon Cha­grin or Pen­i­tence Streets.

And, de­liv­ery trucks will no longer be al­lowed on­to Short Street. The may­or said the traf­fic changes were done in an at­tempt to ease the traf­fic con­ges­tion be­tween La Pique Hill and Li­brary Cor­ner.

“Par­ents drop­ping their chil­dren at Na­pari­ma Girls’ Hight Street will have to come up High Street, on­to La Pique Hill and ex­it on the oth­er end. We are try­ing to make it a sort of round­about,” Re­grel­lo said.

The may­or said all stake­hold­ers were in­formed of the changes.

In an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion, head of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said he was not aware of the changes.

Singh, how­ev­er, said the cham­ber’s po­si­tion has al­ways been to find so­lu­tions for the traf­fic grid­lock that has been plagu­ing down­town San Fer­nan­do.

He said, “In con­junc­tion with the May­or and the City Coun­cil we ac­knowl­edge that traf­fic ini­tia­tives have yield­ed pos­i­tive re­sults. We are hop­ing that this new plan will add to al­le­vi­at­ing the traf­fic flow out of High street.”

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter­wards, the may­or al­so dis­missed ru­mours of job loss­es at the cor­po­ra­tion.

He spec­u­lat­ed that the ru­mours may have been po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed as the coun­try em­barks on the sil­ly sea­son. “I think it is mis­chie­vous,” he said.

With Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form soon to come in­to ef­fect, he an­tic­i­pates more job op­por­tu­ni­ties as the cor­po­ra­tion’s op­er­a­tions and sys­tem will be ex­pand­ed.

“I want to give the as­sur­ance the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and this ad­min­is­tra­tion, this team that I lead, we have no in­ten­tions of send­ing any­body home,” Re­grel­lo said.

The main high­light of the meet­ing, how­ev­er, was the dis­tri­b­u­tion of a his­to­ry book de­tail­ing the de­vel­op­ment of San Fer­nan­do from the 1500s to the 1900s, writ­ten by Michael An­tho­ny, to 12 schools.