Barbados Senator Proposes Free Public Transportation to Ease Traffic Congestion

Independent Senator Andrew Mallalieu has put forward a “radical idea” he believes would ease the traffic congestion on the island’s roads — free transportation for all.

Pointing out that Barbados “suffered with congestion in a serious way,” the businessman has predicted that the situation will only get worse.

“So I have a radical idea, Sir. My solution for transportation is to make it free. I think it should be free for everyone, no matter who. If you are in Barbados, you can travel on the bus for free. We need to find some way to get people to change their culture of driving everywhere, and we need to find reliable, clean, safe, public transportation that we can all use,” he said in the debate on the Appropriation Bill in the Senate on Tuesday.

From his observations, he said, the economy is doing well and he predicted that the country would continue on that track for the next two to three years “unless something changes”.

“Significant projects we’ve heard a lot of around the place, whether that be residential, commercial, tourism infrastructure projects, all of that is going to lead to more and more congestion,” Mallalieu said, adding that the expanding tourism sector also leads to more congestion..

He contended that congestion is a productivity problem that must be dealt with, even as he congratulated the government on the “excellent” road works underway.

Mallalieu stressed that Barbados as a small country needs a reliable public transportation system, but “today, we do not have that”.

“Can we rethink public transportation with a goal to reduce congestion, make it safe and reliable, improve productivity for everyone, and I mean, everyone on the shores of Barbados? I can tell you that in some countries in the world, when I travel to them at the airport, you go to a kiosk and you’re given a little card. If you have had occasion to travel to Geneva and other parts of the world, you can buy a card and you travel freely on public transportation.”

The businessman acknowledged, however, that such a move would result in a loss of revenue for taxi drivers and car rental companies.

“I know that it has an impact, but I just want us to rethink transportation, recognising the problem that we have in congestion unless it is our intention to spend millions and millions of dollars more in road infrastructure in what is effectively a very small city with a lot of competing land users,” he said.