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 7^th 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.