Cabinet is gearing up to discuss a raft of controversial measures to reduce traffic congestion.
They could have wide reaching implications for homeowners, businesses and expatriate workers - but some sacrifice is essential if we are to avoid gridlock.
Ideas making it to the table include: eliminating the second-hand car market; imposing a one-year ban on truck permits and making sure car owners live at the address their car is registered to.
The Cabinet will also consider banning the owners of fractional dwelling units, such as holiday homes, from owning cars and making it an offence to rent out an apartment without an assessment number.
The ideas have been floating around for nearly four years but now they are about to become one of the government's top priorities as it moves forward into the New Year.
Premier Ewart Brown, who is also the Transport Minister, made the promise to tackle the traffic issues shortly after taking over leadership last month.
He said he knows not everyone is going to be happy with the forthcoming changes, but something has got to be done to unclog the roads.
We will report on other suggestions in Friday's newspaper, but early reactions to the ideas above have been positive.
Eliminating the second-hand car market, for example, is designed to make people keep the cars they've got for longer because the only way they could get rid of them would be to send them to the dump, thereby forfeiting the resale value.
When asked about the effect the elimination of the second-hand car market would have, Alan Brooks, the chief operating officer at HWP, Bermuda's largest car dealership, seemed unperturbed.
He told us: "The automobile companies existed under the previous set of rules and we'd continue to exist under any new legislation."
He continued: "I fully understand why the government would want to change things. The amount of traffic on the roads is becoming an everyday concern for people; there are letters to the editor all the time. A government that wants to be seen to be doing things will want to tackle things that people are bringing to their attention."
Mr. Brooks says HWP has a 50 per cent share of the market, which means it sells about 1,300 vehicles a year.
If Cabinet agrees on the second hand car ban it could have a dramatic effect on the number of expatriate workers driving cars as it is unlikely a foreign worker would want to buy a brand new car when they don't know how long they are going to stay here without the possibility of selling it when they leave.
But the prospect of dumping your old car because you want a new one concerns environmentalists like our columnist Stuart Hayward.
He told us: "The elimination of the second-hand car market may or may not have an effect. The only thing we can know for sure is that there will be fewer vehicles available at second-hand prices and there will be more vehicles dumped that are still useful. Pricing is an ineffective deterrent in an affluent community."
According to the National Transportation Management Report, a government initiative designed to address the island's transportation challenges, vehicle ownership is growing at an alarming rate - up more than 70 per cent in the last 20 years to nearly 46,000. In the last five years alone more than 10,000 new vehicles have been put on Bermuda's roads.
Truck ownership is another contentious issue. There are nearly 4,000 trucks on the road - another 70 per cent increase in the past 20 years. It's the main reason for the suggested one-year moratorium on truck permits.
Michelle Khaldun, the general manager of the Bermuda Small Business Development Corporation, said she doubts whether such a measure would create much of a "hue and cry."
She said a business that wants to succeed will find a way around needing its own truck by either hiring out or using cars.
"My experience with business people is that they are very resourceful," she said.
Government's biggest challenge could come in enforcing the rules about assessment numbers.
The idea is to change the Motor Car Act 1951 to require a registered owner to live at the address the car is registered to.
Another change is designed to address the problem where people advertise properties for rent 'without an assessment number.'
A transport source told us: "Usually this means that a vehicle is registered to this number already in spite of the fact that the owner of the vehicle doesn't live there. This is often the second car for a household."
Fuller explanations will be needed to convince the public.
Mr. Hayward, whom we asked to comment on the suggestions, said: "I would feel more encouraged if each measure was accompanied with a rationale for its selection and an anticipated effect on traffic. As they stand, these options would seem to do little more than nibble at the edges of the problem. I would welcome seeing arguments for their efficacy."
What do you think? What is the best way to cut traffic on Bermuda's roads? Email the editor at tmcwilliam@bermudasun.bm
Reader Comments
Posted: Sunday, December 10, 2006
Comment by:
concern
by staggering work start times and school times, i beleive, will drastically reduce traffic congestion. It is a noticeable fact that traffic is sudstantially less when school is out. Why not place school starting times outside the peek hours. schools at the middle school level and above, since those students are indipendent of their parents as in regards to travel. since most jobs start between 8:00am and 9:00 am, why not spread it out to 6:00 am and 10:00 am; especialy those jobs in town.Also, we can better utilize what we have. study how best to use the roads already existing. For example, why not use all of east broad way as a one in the mornings and evenings. while middle road can be used for the opposite direction accordingly.Notice how recently the blocking of one lane on east broadway create more conjestion? In the same way if the opposite side should be open, making it into a 4 lane one way, this will create better trafic flow. I am not an engineer, so I know the engineers can come up with marvelous ideas.
Posted: Thursday, December 07, 2006
Comment by:
Cestria
As a point to note my previous landlord had a car each for both the husband and wife as well as a car and a bike for stay-at-home son. Their married son moved in next door and had a car, a truck and a bike. Thats one Bermudian family at 2 properties with 2 assessment numbers but 4 cars, 2 bikes and a truck. Multiply that by however many other Bermudian families are doing the same and that answers your congestion problems. Of the number of expats on the Island the vast majority are single and riding one bike. Even the wealthiest expat will, as a rule, only own one car and a couple of bikes. This problem is a Bermudian one created by Bermudians. How many times do you see an expensive new, customised vehicle with an expensive sound system parked outside of a dirty, run down, semi-derelict property? Try instilling social and finacial values and enforcing the current laws before trying to change things to suit political perceptions.
Posted: Thursday, December 07, 2006
Comment by:
Chris
Reduce the cost of bus fair so more people will catch the bus it costs 8$ a day for an adult to catch the bus and probably about 4-5$ to drive a car a day.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
spykid
We are so far off the mark here. I really do not see a problem with traffic other then between 8am and 5pm...when everyone is moving into the city for work. What other notable traffic congestion is there other then that? Moreso, this issue is so tired; manufactured crisis is as good as a real one. I suppose it will be too late before folk realize that a secret agenda rides in on every so-called problem we presently face.The last thing we will all remember seeing is our freedoms and liberties ride off into the sunset on the white horse of socialism; and the whole time we will have been duped into endless debate and arguing, thinking the problem was something to do with some silly notion of traffic congestion. The picture and the agenda is so much bigger then that.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
Silas Dogood
To find a solution to your problem you must first figure out the causes of your problem.
First, your problem is not expats so please stop bringing that sorry excuse into the discussion. This article states there are roughly 50,000 enclosed car or truck vehicles on the roads. With an expat population of roughly 10,000-15,000 people, most of whom ride scooters, that leaves at least a conservative estimate of 35,000 Bermudians driving cars of the 50,000 that exist.
In addition, please forgive me, but most expats aren't vane enough to spend $50,000+ for a car, however 'cool' it is, that they would be able to purchase for $16,000 fully loaded back home. Expats are here to live in a beautiful land and make/save as much money as possible, tax free.
Another idea for government to consider is a public transportation system for school children. It is well known that traffic levels fall off a bit during school holidays for one reason or another, mostly due to parents not having to drive them in.
Families with children require a car, businesses require delivery vehicles. For everyone else a car is a luxurious privelege on this island, not an inaliable right.
Please stop blaming expats for our problems, if they were to leave nobody would be left to pay the inexorably high rents that allow us to purchase such expensive vehicles anyway.
Perhaps the infratsructure needs to change, maybe a tunnel? Maybe some bridges? We're rich enough to solve this problem without getting nasty about it.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
Swanie
Wasn't it Dr. Brown who eliminated the one year wait period for purchasing a new car if you sold your old one second hand?? That old system worked. After the law change, I purchased a second hand car and had it for 9 years. The person i purchased that car from has bought and sold 2 cars In that 9 years and a good friend of mines bought and sold three cars. He keeps them for about 3 years then buys a new one. And for others, as soon as a new model (CRV) comes along, they sell their car for a new one. Dr. Brown needs to put that law back into effect. Another suggestion for easing the traffic flow is to charge people for the amount of miles/kilometers they drive every year (cars only) and tack on a surcharge if they drive an excessive amount.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
Casual Bystander
Before clamping down on this rules why do we not do a survey to find out who all these people are who are driving into town in the morning. Example, where do you live, where do you work, what time do you start work, etc. Also making a note of the driver to find out if they are a local or expat.
If you look it as a percentage you will probably find that there is not many expats who use a car to get into work in a morning. In my opinion most expats use a motorcycle or scooter to get into town, and if they are married of have kids the wife stops at home with the car anyway.
The comments made by Karen regarding expats are way out of line because no survey has been done. If you have one kid, you can’t have a car? I think you may find that a lot of expats would leave and setup elsewhere, i.e. Cayman, Bahamas etc. We have enough nervous international business companies with the 6-year rule as it is. Make a change like this will put the final nail in the coffin for a number of international business companies. The underwriters and analysts are generally at the top of the food chain in Bermuda. These individuals also tend to be middle aged or older, hence have family and kids. Do you think that wives of these individuals will be happy using a bus 6 times a day to do grocery shopping, move kids around etc. They probably don’t even leave the Parish never mind come into Hamilton.
Where would the money come from our 1.2 million dollar mortgages then, and we will still have a rush hour problem in the morning providing we all can still afford a car.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
Car Owner
The problem is not with the amount of cars on the road but the time that everyone hits the road. The government really need to look at ways of improving the situation at peak traffic hours. That is when the problem is aggravated.
If you took away from everyone the choice of being able to sell their cars:
1. what happens to those that currently own a decent car in the knowledge that they would be able to recoup the costs once they left the island or looked to trade in?
2. what do you think will happen when an expat realises they can’t own a car because it would be 20 thousand (for example) gone in a flash.
3. what happens to all those second hand cars? More dumping in the sea?
4. will government or someone compensate those ex-pats and others looking to leave the island in the next couple of years because they’ve decided to change the rules with regards to car ownership?
5. what about those Bermudians (and ex-pats) that cannot afford the nice new cars which cost twice as much here as they do elsewhere?
6. do you seriously think that discouraging people from buying cars (ex-pats case in point) that those assessment numbers not being used will sit empty – of course not, the landlord will either get another car for his family or pass onto a family friend.
Government needs to address the current issues already in force:
1. lack of daily, reliable, comfortable public transport.
2. Reduce car size – forget banning second hand cars we don’t need big SUV’s on this island.
3. go out and speak to IB and give incentives for firms with flexible start times in order to avoid the 9 am congestion.
4. charge a road tax for daily commuters into the city – it works elsewhere why not here – the costs of setting it up could easily be recouped by the number of people driving into work to pay for the personnel to man these posts.
5. increase the bus times before 7 am and past 6 am and more transport for the less used routes not just the middle and south road routes.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
Anonymous
One way to reduce traffic is to set up a color coding system as what they term it in other countries. Cars with plate numbers ending in a certain number are banned to use the road from a certain period of time, which is the rush hour period (like 7:30am-9:30am and 5:00pm-7:00pm) For example, cars with plate #'s ending in 1-2 is restricted to be on the road every Monday, 3-4 would be every Tuesday and so on & so forth. I firmly believe that this measure would definitely reduce the number of cars on the road and would help the traffic problems in Bermuda.
Posted: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Comment by:
karen
I have said this before,when a person is ready to buy a NEW car, they should have their OLD one cut in half, not resell it, another is Expats coming to the Island If they are MARRIED with TWO CHILDREN or more then they should be premitted to have a car, too may of them singles have cars, they would elimate quite a few vehicles in this area, Also Government Officials, why are they permitted (2) vehicles, one pirate and the other for the Job? they should have to use their OWN vehicles, what gives them the right to drive two Vehicles, when they are trying to elimate traffic problems, and as we Tax payers have noticed, these Government Official are driviing after 5PM in their Day Job cars.Practice what YOU preech.or as the saying goes, DONT do as I do, do as I say?????
