Disappointed by Minister

November 24, 2004

Dear Sir,

Today, I took time out and attended the Town Hall meeting on The Physically Challenged, which was held at the Cathedral Hall.

Mr. Editor, I was so disappointed that Minister could only find a very short time to attend the Meeting. One would have thought that she would have stayed and listened to even a few of the presentations, and at least show some interest in this part of the community.

In May of this year, the Minister attended a Conference on the Disabled in Jamaica. What ideas did she bring back to Bermuda? Imagine how surprised I was to hear from her that it was not until the Access Week that she realised the position of the disabled in Bermuda.

Mr. Editor, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says in the Preamble that “All Human Beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. Article 2 says that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms” which it sets forth “without distinction of any kind..”

In addition to this, there is the United Nations Document entitled “The Rights of the Disabled Persons”, which says, in part, that the “Disabled Persons have the right to enjoy a decent life, as normal and full as possible”.

It has always been my belief that if we treat the Disabled as we would like to be treated ourselves, there would not be a problem. After all, the disabled have to pay rents and mortgages and they have to eat. It is very important to listen to people. It is very important to understand the problems people have. “Disabled persons must be protected against conditions such as all forms of discrimination, abuse and behaviour of degrading nature.”

Mr. Editor, we must also remember that disabilities does not just stop with those who are Physically Challenged, but should also include those who are Deaf, Hearing Impaired, Blind, and with Learning Disabilities (to name a few). We all have to change our attitude toward this group of people. That is the only way we can all move forward together.

A cure for the bottleneck?

November 12, 2004

Dear Sir,

Dr. Brown is absolutely right when he says we no longer have a “high” and “low” season, it's been “Low Season” all year around for several years now.

Looking at the congestion of people and traffic in the City of Hamilton these days, I seem to recall that someone suggested a number of years ago that businesses and companies should be encouraged to open up at either end of the island.

This would certainly solve a lot of problems that we have now with thousands of people and vehicles trying to squeeze through the bottleneck at the edge of town every morning. It would also open up opportunities for shops and restaurants in these areas as well. Just a thought!.

Let's fix these things!

November 16, 2004

Dear Sir,

I hope that, sometime soon, someone will resurface the part of East Broadway that's been torn up as the Ren Re building has gone up. There's a lot of traffic there and all we need is another tourist to have an accident because that road looks like something out of Appalachia.

I also hope that, someday, the responsible Government department will fix the wall that was torn down by Fabian just west of Tamarind Vale on Harbour Road. Why has this not been fixed - it's been 15 months and all the other walls were fixed?

For the information of the Works and Engineering people, the road between Lower Ferry and Red Hole is very narrow. You ought to know since it was your truck that flipped over (crawling along at 20 mph, no doubt). The wall has been ripped apart and there are cones and a temporary barrier there now but all that's doing is making the road even narrower and WHY don't you just fix it?

Froncioni's twisted logic

November 15, 2004

Dear Sir,

I have a lot of respect for Road Safety Council chairman Joseph Froncioni. But his opposition to raising Bermuda's speed limit [Police seize 18 vehicles in traffic blitz, November 12, 2004 is in direct conflict with his desire for greater use of speed cameras.

His argument against raising the speed limit rests on the premise that people like to push the envelope, and if the limit was set at 50 kph, people would drive at 65. In principle, I agree, but this isn't the whole story. People will only push the envelope if, one, they believe it's safe to do so, and two, they don't expect to get caught. Try driving at 65 kph on some of Bermuda's roads and you'll end up in a ditch. This ought to act as an effective deterrent for most drivers. In places where this natural restriction doesn't exist, place an automated speed camera.

Dr. Froncioni has called for greater use of these devices, but given his insistence that the speed limit should be maintained at its current level, presumably he believes these should be set to catch anyone travelling over 35 kph. However, implementing cameras with a threshold this low would be politically impossible: it would cause an outcry. Set it any higher, though, and you've just raised the speed limit. By advocating two incompatible positions, Dr. Froncioni isn't helping his cause.

Seeds of empowerment

November 15, 2004

Dear Sir,

While there are many useful discussions on traffic congestion, the provision of alternatives and the use of largely punitive measures to combat it, has anyone recently turned the question on its head to examine why the problem exists in the first place?

The simple answer is that most of the office and commercial space on the Island is located in the City of Hamilton. Whether they need to be or not, most businesses and hence the business that support them are forced to locate in the city simply because there is no alternative. Towns and cities have always grown up next to trade routes, roads and rivers because they provided the resource called traffic which brought with it commerce and made the inhabitants wealthy.

In Bermuda we see our roads as just the means to get from where we live to where we work and back. Hamilton has become the resource and the road is merely an impediment. What the traffic is really telling us is that instead of a wide point in the road, Hamilton has become a pinch point and that there is a ripe opportunity to establish new centres of commerce in other locations on the island, accessible by the 50 percent of the road which is not blocked by rush-hour traffic.

The strong telecommunications infrastructure and the nature of international business strongly suggest the viability of commercial properties or even estates in other locations on the island which would reduce the focus of traffic in and out of the city. The properties or estates would themselves spur the development of support services in and around them, providing food, lodging, couriers, dry cleaning, fitness centres and the like, increasing the opportunities for small businesses who cannot get a toe-hold inside the city.

By de-centralising the commercial properties we stand a better chance of using our roads and our human resources more efficiently and we turn a problem into an opportunity. Sounds suspiciously like the seeds of empowerment and I don't even have an agenda.