Greetings to all urban travellers
worldwide, in today’s blog we will be using a different approach in
addressing this our blog’s main theme. Over the past several weeks
the Urban Traveller have attempted to address topics and issues
related to transportation in Trinidad. In doing so, we have provided
images, videos and discussions on a range of topics. In today’s
blog, reflections will be done on other blogs in relation to the
Urban Traveller. So without further ado…….LET’S REFLECT!
The Urban Deception highlights the
deceived perceptions and perspectives of urban areas in Trinidad. As
a result of doing this, Urban Deception uncovers and discovers the
realities of urban areas in Trinidad. Several of their posts show
great relation with the Urban Traveller based on their topics. In the
fourth post of the Urban Traveller, speaks of the efficiency of the
different modes of Transportation. Urban Deception made note of the
fact that the PTSC bus services are always late and in fact very
unreliable especially at the University of the West Indies. To the
public the PTSC is useful and efficient. Yes. It is cost efficient,
but the fact that it is the bus is always late on a daily basis,
makes it the least reliable of all modes of transportation. The Urban
Deception provided an example of the inefficient operation of the
PTSC occurring at the St. Augustin University of the West Indies
campus. They explained that the bus would sometimes arrive an hour
later than its scheduled arrival. To the Urban Traveller this is very
disappointing, this now further highlights why citizens prefer their
own vehicles rather than to utilize public transportation but, why is
there nothing being rectify this issue given the consequences and
effects of citizens neglecting public transportation.
In another post they spoke of the
natural environment being destroyed inorder to accommodate for
development structures. With respect our 7th blog post
entitled “ More Development, Less Public Space, partially discusses
how the main development issue encountered in Trinidad, was the
construction of the extension of the Solomon Hochoy Highway. The
extended construction of the highway led to a lot of arguments,
social and governmental uproars. Conjointly, both posts describes how
there is a great loss of public spaces suited for different purposes
due to development. Cities are growing in population and physical
aspects while urban areas are becoming smaller and thereby losing its
significance. Great tensions exist between the grown of urban spaces
and rural areas and the natural environment.
The second blogger which seemed very
interesting due to their collaboration of themes and ideas with the
Urban Traveller was TriniTransport. Since both blogs had similar
ideas, there were a lot of interesting facts. In their post entitled,
“The
Economics of Parking in Port of Spain” discussed
the issues related to parking as highlighted in our eighth blog post.
With economics being their main focus, through the use of an
interview and observations they came to the conclusion that price was
the determining factor of the use of parking spaces. In our eighth
blog post we discussed this factor but the further stated that many
citizens chose to illegally park along the streets of cities in
refusal to pay the high costs for parking per day. However, we must
applaud the fact that this blog was exceptionally written as it
compliments and provides extra evidence towards the issue of parking.
In another one of their post entitled, “The Cyclist” discusses
what we describe as the Future of Transportation in our ninth blog
post. Given that we face a lot of traffic congestion due to the
overuse of vehicles by citizens as they neglect public transportation
bicycles can be used to reduce this issue. There are many benefits
from using bicycles, therefore we agree that the use of bicycles
should be further supported by organizations. According to
TriniTransport , vehicles are expensive to maintain and purchase
while bicycles are more cost efficient. If you really think about it,
it is better to maximize the use of bicycles, save money and energy.
Given these benefits, in Trinidad the use of bicycles is not a
popular trend, however there is little accommodations made for the
very small population which support bicycle transportation.
Another blog that stood out to us was
Waseem Mohammed and Samantha Singh's blog, The Urban Paradox. This
blog was slightly different from our blog, The Urban Travellers,
however some of their posts touched upon issues that we focused on as
well, regarding transportation including pollution, travelling
distance between Trinidad and Tobago and traffic congestion. Their
pictures were captivating and added character to each post and the
entirety of the blog. Their post on traffic congestion illustrated
the traffic heading in and out of the capital city of Port-of-Spain
every day. They also connected the traffic congestion to how polluted
the environment is due to the increased carbon monoxide emission into
the atmosphere. Another post that could be linked to our blog was
their post on pollution, again the picture perfectly depicted what
was about to be discussed. They connected pollution to the aftermaths
of it, for example the degradation of the environment and even
flooding which is almost a prequel to one of our post on The Urban
Traveller, in which we spoke about flooding being on of the reasons
for traffic congestion. Overall, what I enjoyed most about their blog
was that it was concise, while still discussing all that needed to be
discussed in each post.
