Guernsey Press

Traffic: There just isn't a problem

TRAFFIC – why does this subject seem to take up so much of deputies' and others' time and create so many problems and so much debate?

Published

Anywhere with a population such as ours will have traffic congestion/parking problems at certain times, so why meddle with something we know about/live with, to create just another set of problems we have to learn about and how to live with, rather than stick with what we know and know how to cope with.

Approach Town (or any town) before 9am, and around 4.30-5.30pm and there will be anything from congestion to chaos. Inevitable.

As one who drives all over the island at all times of day and night, experience tells me that apart from road closures, which are temporary, there are no real traffic problems other than lack of parking spaces.

Play around with buses – free, more frequent etc., cycle, walk – the powers that be will not understand they will never persuade the population of Guernsey out of their cars. Short of banning them, cars will always be the number one method of travel in this island (see the dozens, yes dozens of empty buses cruising round) – so why make it more difficult by reducing parking spaces/paying for them, rather than thinking of ways to make it easier for them, for instance, to support a dying town.

Nothing is ever ideal, so again, regarding the envisaged changes to cope with cruise liner passengers –why change one set of arrangements for another, merely shifting problems, or creating more, for example, the loss of more parking spaces.

Furthermore, I suggest our deputies should spend their time dealing with the real problems in the island, such as, to begin with, perhaps curbing their inclination to spend vast sums of our money on projects the island (we) cannot afford.

Their solution is so simple: take the money out of our pockets – tax by another name.

One would have hoped that 'Enough is Enough' just might have made them begin to remember who elected them, and why they were elected – to look after our interests, not to regard us as an endless supply of funding for folly. But, alas, that is just wishful thinking.

Name and address withheld.

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