Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our says his min­istry is work­ing on ini­tia­tives to ad­dress traf­fic con­ges­tion but could not pro­vide de­tails of the plans.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the in­au­gur­al flight of Con­tour Air­lines’ Trinidad and To­ba­go–Do­mini­ca ser­vice at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Mon­day night, Za­k­our re­ferred to the grid­lock caused by sev­er­al road ac­ci­dents along the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way in late Sep­tem­ber.

The ac­ci­dents left mo­torists trapped in traf­fic for up to four hours in some cas­es.

“There are many long-term plans we’re look­ing at, but what hap­pened that day was very un­for­tu­nate. There were sev­er­al ac­ci­dents along the high­way, but we are look­ing at plans. No de­tails at this time,” Za­k­our said.

On­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, mo­torists spent hours in grid­lock traf­fic as the tim­ing of a traf­fic light at Dock Road near the Hy­att Re­gency along the west­bound lane of Wright­son Road led to the con­ges­tion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said the tim­ing of the traf­fic lights dis­rupt­ed the nor­mal flow of traf­fic in the area and be­yond. The TTPS said traf­fic en­gi­neers from the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion worked to ad­dress the prob­lem.

Mean­while, asked to re­spond to con­cerns raised by the T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion about al­leged ar­rears of $20 mil­lion, for which it was seek­ing pay­ment in the new fis­cal year, Za­k­our said the mat­ter should be ad­dressed by man­age­ment.

“I have met with TTAL­PA a cou­ple of times this year, but I would leave that for the man­age­ment to ad­dress,” he said.

Asked about the Na­tion­al Bud­get, sched­uled to be pre­sent­ed on Oc­to­ber 12, Za­k­our said he was “look­ing for­ward” to it.