In the first part of a three-part series on traffic in Hamilton, Lawrence Trott speaks to Corporation of Hamilton secretary Roger Sherratt on the challenges facing the city.

*** On any given day as many as 6,000 cars enter Hamilton during the morning rush hour, quickly filling up the available parking bays for cars.

Granted, a number of those cars don't stay in the city, the driver either dropping somebody off or picking up something and then heading out again. But even so, the 5,411 parking spaces for cars don't remain empty for long as the stress of trying to find a parking spot begins and won't ease up until late afternoon.

Then, another problem begins, as drivers try to get exit those parking bays early enough to beat the heavy traffic out of the city.

And if you live in the west end of the Island, forget about trying to leave at 5 p.m. and arriving home in good time to prepare an early dinner.

It's one of the many problems facing the Corporation of Hamilton and Department of Planning as they try to make the commute into Hamilton -- and the experience while there -- as enjoyable as possible. But with limited space and more and more traffic on our roads, there are no easy solutions.

"I remember a traffic study a few years ago said that if we reach more than 15,000 cars we would reach saturation point,'' said Roger Sherratt, secretary of the Corporation of Hamilton.

"Well, according to TCD figures, we reached 22,500 by the end of last year, and we have continued to see an increase this year, maybe 23,000 by now.'' The statistics are alarming -- 22,567 private cars alone on Bermuda roads by the end of 1999. There were also 1,282 light trucks, 1,113 intermediate trucks, 820 heavy trucks, 75 `tank wagons' which include 67 water trucks, 600 taxis.

That adds up to about 26,700 four-wheel vehicles, not counting buses. Motor cycles, which add to the congestion with bike riders now facing their own parking challenges in the city, totalled 21,285 at the end of 1999. Add to that 3,652 livery cycles for rent, as well as those new bikes coming on the road this year, and the number of bikes on the road have hit the 25,000 mark.

"So with 25,000 two-wheel vehicles and twenty-six-and-a-half thousand four-wheel vehicles, my math says we have over 50,000 vehicles on our roads,'' says Mr. Sherratt.

"That's practically a vehicle for every man, woman and child on the Island including babies, so Bermuda has a traffic problem.

"In a traffic study done in 1997, just in the morning rush hour between 8 and 9 it was estimated that 9,500 vehicles were coming into the city. Of those 6,300 would be cars and just over 3,000 would be bikes and that doesn't include bikes coming in earlier or later during the day.'' Figures for 2000 are presently being compiled by the Department of Transportation. But even without this year's figures, it is clear that the demand on bike parking has reached an all-time high.

As quickly as new bike bays are built -- often at the expense of parking spots for cars -- they fill up and stay that way for most of the day.

At one time a person owning a bike and a car often chose to ride the bike into Hamilton during the week because of the availability of parking bays. But that isn't the case any more as bike owners have found out.

Bumper to bumper traffic in Hamilton's streets "It's a nightmare trying to park my bike outside my office building,'' said Mark, who works in a building on Par-La-Ville Road. "On quite a few occasions I have come out at the end of my workday and honestly didn't have a clue where I parked my bike.

"Once, I parked it somewhere where I had never parked it before and, after checking the first two areas where I normally park it, I was convinced it had been stolen. Finally I remembered where it was.'' The Corporation of Hamilton met with much opposition when they decided to build the Bull's Head car park. Not used to having to pay for parking, locals vowed never to park there, choosing to park even further from their workplace than to play the $3 all-day fare. Nowadays the multi-level car park, which was completed in 1994 and holds 720 cars, is mostly full.

"At the time it was described as a `white elephant','' Mr. Sherratt remembers.

"The quotes were Bermudians will never walk all the way from Bull's Head into Hamilton, but right now it's fairly close to full capacity. We estimate 40 or 50 spaces are available.

"In order to park for free commuters have been parking all over north Hamilton. Where we used to say that people won't walk from Bull's Head, they will now walk from the far corners of the city into town if they can get free parking.'' People are parking as far north as Bernard Park and TCD in order to avoid paying to park.

"That's had an impact on two groups in north Hamilton,'' Mr. Sherratt noted, referring to residents and businesses in that area.

"Where traditionally people have been able to live in north Hamilton and park outside their homes, they now find that somebody else comes along at 7.30, 8.00 in the morning and parks right outside their house and walks into town for the day.

"That's been a major problem but we've dealt with it as well. What we've had to do is introduce residential parking for people who live in the city and we provide that free.

"We create bays in areas where people are living and have cars so that only they can use those parking areas. They have special residential parking bays and can use any one of those bays. That works very, very well.'' Businesses in north Hamilton are protected by one-hour maximum parking which cannot be abused. Recognising the growing problems with traffic in Hamilton, The Corporation of Hamilton and the Department of Planning got together to produce the `New City of Hamilton Plan', a Transport Strategy Discussion Paper.

"In designing the New City of Hamilton Plan, with included a very extensive traffic study done by a team of consultants and input from the general public, we did come up with a Transport Strategy Discussion Paper which has been accepted as a general philosophy by the Corporation,'' said Mr. Sherratt.

"Some of those things have been incorporated into the city plan itself which is due to be announced at any time. It is the most comprehensive city plan ever produced for Hamilton, it has taken us three years to complete it and the Department of Planning has done a fantastic job.

"What we want to do is prioritise parking and as a general rule encourage commuters, people who are going to park all day, to park in the outer car parks. That would include Bull's Head, Elliott Street and Dundonald Street, the long term parking areas.'' Mr. Sherratt says the plan has always been to make it easier for persons coming into Hamilton for a short time to be able to do their business.

"If people can't shop and come into town to do their business then the shops and the businesses suffer,'' he stated.

"The whole reason for having a town or a city is so that you can come into it to do your shopping.'' The Corporation and traffic wardens know all the tricks used by car drivers.

Before, when there was one hour free parking on the streets, drivers used to leave their offices every hour to move their car, swopping parking spots with a colleague.

"Five years ago, what used to happen is people in Hamilton did what we used to call the `city shuffle' when you had two people who worked together and every hour would come out and switch each other's cars,'' explained Mr.

Sherratt.

"You had an hour free parking and if you could just shuffle every hour you got free parking all day and literally clogged up the whole of the city centre.

"The result was it was impossible for anybody coming into the city to park.

What we gradually did was introduce voucher parking in 1995 and that immediately stopped that to a great degree.'' And with employees in and out of their offices productivity was lower than it might have been.

"It was a major problems not just to shops but to all businesses in the city because employees were walking out every hour to move their cars,'' said the secretary.