JAN­NELLE BERNARD

Se­nior Re­porter

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

Some taxi dri­vers ply­ing routes out of Port-of-Spain say they are forced to in­crease their fares, while oth­ers are con­cerned about their safe­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Care­nage Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wal­ter Matthew said with the ris­ing cost of liv­ing and in­creas­ing main­te­nance costs, dri­vers are now forced to in­crease the fare from Port-of-Spain to Care­nage by one dol­lar.

At present, the cost of a trip from the cap­i­tal city to Care­nage and vice ver­sa is six dol­lars. Short drops will al­so cost an ad­di­tion­al dol­lar.

He said fares have not been in­creased since 2017.

Mean­while, the Diego Mar­tin to Pe­tit Val­ley taxi dri­vers are call­ing for their taxi stand to be re­lo­cat­ed, as they say its lo­ca­tion is no longer safe.

Lo­cat­ed at South Quay, dri­vers said ply­ing their trade has be­come risky busi­ness as soon as the sun sets.

Diego Mar­tin/Pe­tit Val­ley Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kervin An­toine said af­ter nor­mal work­ing hours, the stand is in a de­sert­ed area with poor light­ing and away from where the ma­jor­i­ty of com­muters usu­al­ly tra­verse. He said as a re­sult, this makes it un­safe, es­pe­cial­ly for women and chil­dren.

An­toine said, “On an evening time the round­about is flood­ed with peo­ple go­ing to Diego Mar­tin/Pe­tit Val­ley. Our stand is by South Quay down by the Mu­se­um. No one walks down there in the evening time, so what hap­pens is you have all the peo­ple at In­de­pen­dence Square. All the taxis by South Quay, so the PH will ply their trade and they will pick up the peo­ple.”

An­toine added that pas­sen­gers would usu­al­ly flock to pri­vate hire (PH) cars be­cause where those cars are lo­cat­ed is safer and more con­ve­nient.

He said dri­vers would feel safer if the stand is re­lo­cat­ed dur­ing the evening pe­ri­od.

He is al­so con­cerned about the up­com­ing Car­ni­val 2024 pe­ri­od, as there are not any al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments in place to fa­cil­i­tate the dri­vers.

An­toine said every Car­ni­val sea­son, the dri­vers are forced out from the stand to fa­cil­i­tate spec­ta­tor stands in the city.

He added, “Last year they dropped the ma­te­r­i­al, they built the stand and dur­ing that whole time I had over one hun­dred dri­vers who had no stand to ply their trade.”