Ex­pec­ta­tions of con­sid­er­able re­lief when park­ing me­ters are in­stalled in T&T’s two cities should be kept in check, giv­en the un­reg­u­lat­ed and unau­tho­rised ac­tiv­i­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to the peren­ni­al con­ges­tion and frus­tra­tion in­volved in con­duct­ing busi­ness in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do.

The re­al­i­ty is that bring­ing or­der to arrange­ments that have not been man­aged for decades, will re­quire much more than the place­ment of de­vices to col­lect mon­ey from dri­vers who park ve­hi­cles on cer­tain streets.

For that rea­son, cur­rent ef­forts by the Works and Trans­port Min­istry and the re­spec­tive city cor­po­ra­tions to in­tro­duce paid park­ing sys­tems will re­quire very se­ri­ous ex­am­i­na­tion of po­ten­tial hin­drances to its smooth op­er­a­tion, such as PH dri­vers and street ven­dors.

So, hold the ap­plause for now, un­til a work­able and sus­tain­able plan is de­vel­oped.

While park­ing me­ters seem a more at­trac­tive propo­si­tion than the tried and failed wreck­ing pro­gramme which was prob­lem­at­ic on many lev­els, it will re­quire prop­er im­ple­men­ta­tion and ef­fi­cient man­age­ment to suc­ceed.

It could be a way for the mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do to fi­nal­ly bring city traf­fic and park­ing arrange­ments un­der con­trol, as well as a source of rev­enue.

How­ev­er, even be­fore the me­ters can be in­stalled, city and traf­fic of­fi­cials face the mon­u­men­tal task of clear­ing away the scores of il­le­gal ven­dors who block pave­ments and por­tions of road­ways with trol­leys, ta­bles, push carts and oth­er un­sight­ly para­pher­na­lia laden with goods they of­fer for sale.

Oc­ca­sion­al crack­downs by mu­nic­i­pal po­lice are of lit­tle help. These street ven­dors have op­er­at­ed for so many years that they are skilled at evad­ing the au­thor­i­ties and sim­ply re­turn to re­sume their il­le­gal hus­tle once the coast is clear.

The PH dri­vers are an­oth­er ma­jor prob­lem, as they ply their trade with seem­ing­ly un­re­strict­ed ac­cess across the cities, even to the point of vy­ing with le­gal taxi dri­vers on the des­ig­nat­ed stands, as well as scout­ing for pas­sen­gers on streets that are off-lim­its to taxis.

Af­ter all the years that au­thor­i­ties have seemed pow­er­less against these brazen law­break­ers, it would be in­ter­est­ing to see how they will fi­nal­ly suc­ceed at en­force­ment to fa­cil­i­tate a prop­er­ly run park­ing me­ter sys­tem.

Park­ing me­ters are a con­cept, like the now re­ject­ed light rail sys­tem and the aban­doned park and ride arrange­ments, that have been dis­cussed for years,

How­ev­er, there now seems to be added im­pe­tus for them to fi­nal­ly ma­te­ri­alise on city streets, giv­en the chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley threw out to the new­ly-elect­ed mem­bers of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion a few weeks ago. If they don’t have a park­ing me­ter sys­tem in place by the end of their term, the PM told them, he would con­sid­er them as hav­ing failed.

May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne has con­firmed a meet­ing is sched­uled with Works Min­istry of­fi­cials ear­ly next week to dis­cuss a paid park­ing arrange­ment for the city.

While there is no word on what is planned for the south­ern city, it is like­ly the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion will fol­low suit, act­ing on the chal­lenge thrown out by Dr Row­ley, al­though he did not ad­dress them di­rect­ly on the mat­ter.

This isn’t sim­ply a park­ing is­sue but a mat­ter of bring­ing a range of chaot­ic prac­tices un­der con­trol. Here’s hop­ing that these new­ly in­stalled city of­fi­cials are up to this very com­pli­cat­ed task.