Different Face Different Places

Lady making her way down town from bus terminal Many Afro-Trinidadians utilise the public transport services.

Different Face Different Places

As mentioned before in our “To buy a car or not buy a car? That is the question” blog diversity on public transportation in Trinidad is limited. This is due to the fact the racial divide that occurs in Trinidad. Afro-Trinidadians tend to work lower wage earning jobs while Indo-Trinidadian tend to work more professional jobs. This leads to more Afro-Trinidadians being unable to afford to purchase their own car. Additionally, the smaller white population of Trinidad tend to be business wealthy business owners who would not be caught dead on a maxi travelling to Port of Spain.

In essence, Afro-Trinidadians make up the majority of the faces you see on the maxies in Trinidad. Adrica Simmion, a regular maxi traveller, confessed that main “black” people take maxi. She stated that Indo-Trinidadians usually have their own cars that they drive.

However, the buses are a much different case. The Public Transports Service Cooperation (PTSC) busses run straight from the eastern side of the island down to the southern side of the island. The southern areas of Trinidad are known to have a predominately Indo-Trinidadian population. Hence, it is not uncommon to see many Indo-Trinidadians on the PTSC buses flocking downing South on the weekends. This is especially true for university students who live down south but study at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus in the northern section of the island.

According to one such student of Analice Ramkisson, who lives in a small settle just outside Princetown, travelling home by bus on weekends feels like a huge reward for the long she has had. According to Analice life down south is much nicer. It’s where most of her family and friends so she does not mind the long bus ride. Analice agreed she’d love to have her parents come pick her up in the family car but that is not always possible as both of them work so she makes the sacrifice and takes the bus home. She continued to say that she could stay up if they can not come for her but she would much rather the slight inconvenience of the bus to get home than staying up on the northern side of island. Analice additionally confessed that she never takes a maxi to go anywhere, as she never goes to Port of Spain and her parents always drop her into Princetown if she needs to go.

According to Glaeser et al. (2006), more than 19 percent of people in cities are poor vs only 7.5 percent of persons in suburbs. This corresponds with Analice’s statement that she has no need to take public transport besides to “down south” on the weekends. Another student, also of Indo-Trinidadian decent, Vinash Ramdass, states that he has no need to take maxi or bus as he has a car given to him by his parents. He admits he never goes into Port of Spain as he has need to. He confessed that his mother does all of his shopping “down south”.

The mere fact that finding statistics to validate the observations made shows an even deeper underlying problem. For such an ethnically diverse country like Trinidad one would expect there to be many studies done on the economic disparities between the various races.

According to Ashlee, an Afro-Trinidadian UWI student from Arima, travelling to and from school, Port of Spain and anywhere else via maxi is her fate which she endures because she is not fortunate enough to be able to afford a car. As stated in our “To buy a car or not buy a car? That is the question” cars are an expensive asset. According to Ashlee, catching maxi is common people of her “type”, meaning people of her race. She further states that she often takes trips to Port of Spain with her mother and sometimes friends, to shop.

According to Seiler (2007) historically “black” persons were not allowed to take public transport. If they did they were subjected to police harassment and bigotry. Seiler (2007) states that only “elite blacks” such athletes and entertainers were permitted on public transport. Surely things have come a long way. Now “blacks” dominate the public transport railways while other races avoid them.

Steven Williams, a Caucasian Trinidadian, who is an executive manager on board of companies, confess that he hates taking any form of public transport and rarely ever ventures into the city, unless on business. He says he’d rather drive himself and pay the high cost of parking in one of the many car parks in the city as mentioned in our “The Economics of Parking in Port of Spain”. He added that he has not taken a maxi since his very early school days. Not to make the other races left out, Jenna, of Spanish Venezuelan descent and Chang of Asian descent, when speaking to us admitted that they have never taken a maxi in their lives as there families have always been fortunate enough to have had cars. It was then discovered that Jenna’s parents are store owners and Chang’s parents own numerous Chinese restaurants. They further disclosed that they too rarely ever venture into Port of Spain, but do most of their shopping at the mall where there is better parking.

Clearly, there is a limited diversity on the public railways. This lack of diversity seems mainly driven by economic disparities in the country. I wonder if anyone else noticed. 

Don’t Miss That School Bus!!!

Parents taking their little ones to school in terminal 

Don’t Miss That School Bus!!!

Busy Port of Spain on a Saturday exuberates an air of innocence as children travel from school with their doting parents or guardians and the brave few who travel on their lonesome. Port of Spain and San Fernando are the major points for persons travelling to and fro school. The fact that these cities are the major stops on almost all Trinidad bus routes explains why most persons have to pass through either of these cities to

According to Alexander (1990) highlights that the long distances travelled by children who go to small rural district schools results in the majority of their school budget is spent on transportation. Though there are school in these more rural areas the best schools are in the more urban areas, as more urban areas tend to have better services. Children going to school in more rural areas of Trinidad have to travel extremely far from their homes to go to the best schools in Port of Spain. According Ms. Francais and her thirteen (13) year old daughter Rania to the best schools such as St. Mary’s Fatima, Holy Name Convent which are considered to be the best schools in the island, are all located in the city of Port of Spain. These schools are considered “the best” because in order to attend these schools primary school students must receive over 250 marks in the common entrance examination. These schools are ranked based on common entrance marks.

Those children who live in more rural areas who are so unfortunate to pass for one of these city schools, experience great difficulty in getting to and from school in a timely fashion. According to Ms. Francais children like her daughter wake very earlier for school and get home during the mid to late evening depending on the traffic. Ms. Francais complains that this puts unnecessary strain on her daughter and the children in similar situations as these children as these children are often extremely due to the fact these child spend on average more than four (4) hours traveling daily, which cuts into their sleep time.

1.1 Graph showing the distance travelled in time and in miles

Nevertheless, parents of these children refuse to remedy the distance issue by sending their children to closer schools that are in their rural neighbourhoods on the basis that they would like their children “to get a better education, (Ms. Francais). These parents believe that the only for their children to truly succeed is to be sent one of the many “top” schools in the city. This could be to the detriment of the rural communities in which they live. According to Rojas (1989) when rural dwellers seek employment or schooling outside of their rural community, in cities and towns, the rural areas suffer a great loss. These persons who could possibly contribute meaningfully to the advancement of the rural community end up contributing to the further development of the urban areas in which they work or attend school. If the brightest children are sent to city schools, rural areas suffer in that the schools these areas are well funded by government, they do not receive many scholarships, they are not well acknowledge for their academic or sporting achievements. These schools often become margialised and poorly funded, Rojas (1989) argue that politicians and government should do more to develop rural areas as well as urban areas instead on pool all of the resources and revenue in urban areas. He argues that this would increase the countries overall productivity.

However, there are some exceptions to this rule. There are some prestigious schools in the southern areas of Trinidad. For example the Naparima Colleges (NAPS) for boys and girls are the shiny beckons of the south. Both of these school are well known for the brilliant student they produce. These schools However, are in San Fernando, a city in the south of Trinidad. This means that children who live in rural areas of Trinidad still have to travel to the city in order to attend a “good” school. Nevertheless many children like Rania Francais make the daily sacrifice to travel to school with little complaint; being heavily convinced that it is for their benefit. Hopefully some brilliant mind will recognise that brilliance can be natured in rural areas as well, so that these children can get a “good” education closer to home.

Sources:

http://myelearning.sta.uwi.edu/file.php/32678/Rojas_1989.pdf

http://www.inis.gov.ie/website/nda/cntmgmtnew.nsf/0/8F45C3FF02655CAE802570F2004774C5/$File/student_journeys_18.htm

The Economics of Parking in Port of Spain

Car park in the city 

The Economics of Parking in Port of Spain

Some Question IF Driving or Taking Public Transport to the City Would Be a Better Option.

When Walking through the busy streets of Port of Spain there are many vehicles parked along the side of the road. Have you ever wondered why?  Most of these persons are trying to acquire free parking and not having to pay the fee of entering a Car Park which is about 40 TT for the day. As two urban geographers we stood outside on the Car Parks in Port of Spain and asked persons questions on why they prefer to Park in this high rise car park than on the street. Then we moved onto the streets and interview this interesting man by the name of Ryan when he was vacating his car on why he prefers to Park illegally. He stated that he was only going to be in town for a short while he saw no since in going to pay all of that money when he can Park along side of the road. We asked him if he is aware of the consequences of parking on the streets for example having his car taken up by a tow truck or it being accidently hit by an oncoming car. He stated that it has never happened so he would continue risking it.

As we continued our adventure throughout the city, hearing the sound of the talking vendors and the smell of fresh pineapple, we asked Ryan along with two other drivers if they considered the calamities of parking when buying car, their answer was no, their only thought was using their vehicles mode of transportation. Many of the factors such as parking spaces, gas money and the up keep of the car is sometimes neglected when purchasing a car by many owners. One may question how does this tie into urban geography; it doesn’t actually have a specific topic but the greatest highlight in this blog is the prices in the city versus other places within the country and how the how the working class mainly makes up the greater percentage that use the parking in the city.

According to Michael Pacione, in most cities centre, finding a place to park a car is difficult. In many cities parking is often seen, by drivers at least, as the major problem of urban transport. He also stated that it is impossible for a large city to provide car parking space for all who wish to enter the centre restrictions apply. These may lead to illegal parking, which can impede the flow of traffic. This is not the case in this Caribbean country however on special holidays such as Christmas and other special occasions there would be a massive load of persons invading the city making it hard for persons to park but on a daily basis car parks are very empty. Especially on weekends because on weekdays the working population take up most of the space within these parks. In comparison to these continents there are greater amount of cars than in Trinidad giving rise to the problems they encountered, this was experienced first-hand in the U.S.A when my aunt hand to continually circle the high rise parking lot in search of a parking space other than my experience here when I entered the car park there were so many spaces it was unbelievable. There are 256 million cars in North America versus Trinidad which was 13,500. See Figure 1 below

Our las venture was interview persons at the toll both, although they were a bit sceptical at two strangers walking up to them answered us with a smile. This specific carpark’s name was Trinity Cathedral Carpark which the lady stated to us that this car par does not take daily persons that come for a one off park but it more made out for working persons which pay a monthly fee. She was unsure of the price and referred us to the main office which was close due to it being a Saturday. We followed by asking her if many of the car parks around the city are like this and she stated that yes a couple of them are only monthly payments only. One can see economically why persons why take monthly payer over one off users. A greater revenue is generated at the end of the month than just a couple persosn paying for a couple hours.

256 000000

13,500

Happy Reading J

To buy a car or not buy a car? That is the question.

 Lady on her way to work in the City 

There are two arguments for when using public transportation to enter and exit the city get in and out of the city. The first is that Firstly public transportation it is cheaper than buying a car. This may be true due to the fact that cars require some form of upfront capital to purchase the car, heavy maintenance, gas or diesel and insurance. However, the other argument for using public transport is that you do not have to bother about finding a car park space when you travel to the city. Nevertheless, the main reason for taking public transport into and from the city is because of the heavy expense of owning private transportation. According to Cherry-Ann Rapsad, he high price of vehicles in Trinidad is the main reason for the dependence on public transportation. Although in the previous blog it was mentioned that there are more private vehicles on the road the price of vehicles is still quite unaffordable to the average person living in the city or who have to travel city daily for work.

According Ms. Parsad there are other priorities on which to spend money; for instance school fees for children, groceries, rent etc. She went on to say that the distance lives from her work  place which is the city is an encouragement to invest in a car. Even so, the initial capital needed to attain a car is too much. Kain and Meyer (2001) state that immobility is a disadvantage of the poor and hence improving such mobility increase job opportunities and by extension self-sufficiency.

 According to the Trinidad Car Sales Catalogue (Trinidad Autobook) (2016) the cheapest price for a car in Trinidad is roughly about $50,000.00 TT. This price is well over the budget of many city dwellers and persons who make a humble living in small stores in the city as Ms Parsad does. Transportation is based on efficiency and fairness, according to Moore and Pulidindi (2004). Moore and Pulidindi believe that persons take the public transportation because it provides “bang for your buck” meaning the service the public transport system provides is economical (efficiency). They also believe that fairness is a major determinant of how many persons utilise public transportation. They believe that those who opt to take public transportation see it as using what their taxes papers dollars pay for as public transportation is subsidised for patrons.

Ms. Parsad also mention the racial divide that is evident on the cities’ public transport networks. The majority of patrons using public transport in and out of both Port of Spain and San Fernando by observation were of African descent. She stated that in her opinion the majority of Indo-Trinidadians used private moods of transportation. This was especially the case for San Fernando as the majority of residents and who appeared to be working in the city were of Indo-Trinidadian descent. This seemed less heavily dependent on public transportation than Port of Spain. The Indo-Trinidadian population living in or working in both Port of Spain and San Fernando tend being in higher income bracket than those of Afro-Trinidadian descent.

Sources:

http://www.nlc.org/documents/Find%20City%20Solutions/Research%20Innovation/Infrastructure/understanding-urban-transportation-systems-gid-mar11.pdf

http://www.trinidadautobook.com/

http://search.proquest.com/openview/40af153798c8bef83b455a6ca1e63d22/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1817076