Vaz pledges rural transportation system by 2025

Students in rural Jamaica who have to traverse long distances in unreliable transportation to and from school should have the benefit of a rural transportation system by January next year, Minister of Transport Daryl Vaz has promised.

However, this commitment has been met with scepticism from Stewart Jacobs, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), who is chiding the Government for its lack of urgency in addressing this longstanding issue.

On Monday, Vaz, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, and Minister of Education Fayval Williams travelled with students on a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus from the Half-Way Tree Transport Centre to Jamaica College (JC) on Old Hope Road in St Andrew where they participated in devotional activities.

Students from Papine High School, and Mona High School were also on board the bus.

While acknowledging the contrasting realities for students in rural Jamaica who are often left to an arbitrary quota system by bus and taxi operators, and pay fares ranging from $200 to $600 per day, Vaz told The Gleaner that he is finalising a phased implementation of a rural transport system with the finance ministry and Cabinet.

“We have the template for it, but there will be a significant cost to be able to roll it out, which the Government will have to incur even though it will be done by private sector,” he said.

The government subsidy, approximately $3 billion, will be “tough to allocate all at once”, Vaz noted, hence the phased approach.

A similar commitment was made by the minister in November last year, when he told a post-Cabinet press briefing that the Government would be implementing a pilot programme for the rural transportation system for students early this year.

At the time, Vaz said the parishes for the rollout had not yet been finalised.

“It is long overdue and it is somewhat annoying that each year, for the last two years, that the NPTAJ has been asking for a deliberate rural and urban transport system to be put in place to take our children to and from school,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs contends that an efficient transportation system for students will be beneficial for society.

“You’d have less crime and violence in schools, you’ll have a child being more accepting of what he’s being taught because he is more rested. Also you find that some of the fracas that happen at the transport centre, will not happen because there won’t be any loitering, they’ll be able to get a bus quickly and go home,” he said.

Jacobs added that students will not be exposed to all the improprieties that occur at the transport centre and in some buses.

But Vaz pointed to the Montego Bay Metro Bus Company (MBMBC), which has been allocated 12 additional buses, bringing its fleet to 18, and which will allow it to increase the number of school routes it offers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Holness, in his address to parents and students at JC, noted that among the struggles that parents have to contend with in preparing their children for back to school is “the difficulty in getting from home to school, the distance and the unreliable and expensive public transportation”.

Highlighting the Government’s acquisition of 100 new buses for the JUTC, he said it has expanded the state-owned bus company’s capacity to provide more efficient service and, even more, is a key component of his administration’s push to reduce the cost of living.

“It is things like this that the Government is focusing on, getting more buses into the public transportation system with the structure of persons who can’t pay, persons who we… target for support with subsidies like students going to school. This is a way in which we will reduce the cost to you, the parents,” he said.

Of importance, he said, is the need for public transportation to be clean, reliable, and safe.

Holness disclosed that there are 13 cameras on each of the new buses, and that they are geo tracked.

“We are really trying to improve the quality of the service and that would be a tangible way in which the Government would take the benefits of the good fiscal management of the economy and translate it into tangible benefits that improve your quality of life, improve the service that you get, remove the pain point of public transportation and reduce the cost of living,” he said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com