PM Golding - Official Opening Half Way Tree Transportation Centre Jan 12, 2008

ADDRESS BY

THE HON. BRUCE GOLDING

PRIME MINISTER

AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE HALF WAY TREE

TRANSPORT CENTRE AT HALF-WAY-TREE

Saturday, January 12, 2008

10:00 a.m.

The very eloquent and elegant Master of Ceremonies

Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Ken Baugh and Mrs. Baugh

Minister Mike Henry, Minister of Transport and Works and his wife

Other Ministers of Government

His Worship the Mayor, Councillor Desmond McKenzie

Former Minister, Robert Pickersgill representing the Leader of the

Opposition

Former Minister and Member of Parliament for this area, Dr. Peter

Phillips

Belgian Ambassador, Ambassador Herman Portocarero

Members of the Belgian Contingent

and we welcome you so much to Jamaica Robert DeVriese, the             Planning Plenipotentiary Minister and Deputy Director General for Bilateral Relations of the Belgian Government

Mr. Michael Van Der Voort, Vice President of the ACP Chamber of Commerce, Belgium

I want to make special reference to Mr. Jacque Issa who is not only the Senior Vice President of the Belgium Commerce Bank which has financed this particular project, not only our Honorary Consul in Belgium but who played such a pivotal role in the creation of this facility and I want to specially recognize and say thanks to him.

Representatives of the contractors Besix, representatives of other entities in Belgium who are here

Our Ambassador to Belgium, Ambassador Maxine Gilbert-Roberts

Our former Ambassador to Belgium, now Ambassador to Canada Ambassador Evadne Coy

Members of the Diplomatic Corp

Representatives of the Port Authority of Jamaica

Representatives of the Jamaica Urban Transport Corporation

Members of Parliament

Ladies and Gentlemen

Today we formally open and officially bring into service, this magnificent facility undoubtedly the most modern public passenger road transportation facility anywhere in the Caribbean.  And although it has already been done I want to reiterate our appreciation and our tributes to the previous government who conceptualized this project, who recognized the need for this facility and who put the project together, secured the financing and guided it through most of its construction.

I want to express thanks on behalf of the government and people of Jamaica to the Belgium government.  We have had a long tradition of economic relations and bilateral cooperation with the government and the people of Belgium.  We have had formal diplomatic relations with Belgium for more than forty years and during that forty years there have been many, many instances in which they have extended that hand of friendship.  They have cooperated with us in various development initiatives in Jamaica.  Even as we speak, the Belgium government is helping us to repair a number of schools that were damaged by Hurricane Dean and I want to express our appreciation to the continuing support that we received from the government of Belgium.

One of the significant features of this project, and reference was made by Mr. Pickersgill to it, was the tremendously favourable terms under which this project have been financed.  Eighty percent (80%) of the capital that was loaned to us for the construction of this facility was made available to us free of interest and the remaining twenty percent (20%) attracts a concessionary rate of a little over four percent (4%).  That is international friendship in its highest form and I want to say how much we appreciate that gesture.

I want to pay tribute to the contractors who were in charge of the project for the very efficient way in which this project was built, for the fact that they delivered this project almost dead on time.  We were hoping to have completed it in October of last year but there were delays that had to be accounted for including the hurricane last year, as well as intermittent shortages of cement.  When taking all that into account I really think that we must give a round of applause to the contractors for a job well done and well delivered.

I want to pay special tribute to the workers who were engaged on this site.  I say that because I feel a certain discomfort and a certain disappointment whenever I see a construction site in Jamaica and I see large numbers of foreign construction workers.  I am pleased to say that we did not experience that on this project.  This project was built by the hands of the construction workers in Jamaica and it is a demonstration continuing in our long tradition that displays that Jamaican workers know how to build, because we have built airports and we have built piers, and I want to pay tribute to all of them who have helped to complete this project so splendidly and on time.

This facility will do several important things.  It will centralize terminal stops and the dispatch of buses serving not just Kingston but Greater Kingston Metropolitan region stretching as far as Portmore.  It is going to provide a controlled environment which is going to be secured, which is going to provide our commuters with comfort, which is going to enable them to go about their business in an orderly and an organized way and it is going to make a significant impact to the commuting challenges that people in the Corporate Area and people who journey to the corporate area have to contend with. 

I am very pleased with how the project has been delivered and in the early stages we are going to have to document very carefully our experience in the management of the centre because I would like this to become a model, a template of what we can do in other major urban centres across the island to provide them with similar facilities and to improve the conditions for commuters there as well.

It is going to require professional management.  Minister Henry has already indicated that the Port Authority will be in charge of the management and we are pleased about that because they have demonstrated tremendous capacity, tremendous expertise in managing facilities like this and they are going to have the responsibility for the management of the transport centre.

 But it is going to require more than that.  It is going to require public support.  It is going to require public co-operation and in that support and co-operation, it is going to require discipline.  This is not a place where everything is going to be everything.  It is a place that is going to have to be run and managed with rules that must be observed and I am imploring members of the public who will use this facility to understand that we expect of you, a level of behaviour, a level of conduct that will be commensurate with the tremendous investment that has been made to provide this facility for you.

I want to suggest to you that this is not a government something.  This facility is not the government's facility.  I want the people of Jamaica and the people of the Corporate Area who will use it.....  I want you to take ownership of this facility, look after it. Care it well, use it well and make sure that for many, many years to come, we can all come here and be proud not only of what was built and open today but what has been maintained over all these many, many years.

There are some issues that will have to be addressed.  Minister Henry spoke to some of them.  This was designed to accommodate the JUTC bus fleet.  JUTC is not the only entity involved in moving passengers across the Corporate Area and we are going to have to make provision for those non JUTC buses that are authorized to operate within this area.  I know he has plans for that.  It may not be possible for them to be accommodated in here but I know that Minister Henry is working on plans to ensure that they too can be properly accommodated so that they can give better service to the commuting public. 

We have to face the need as well for improvement in the bus service itself.  It is not going to make much sense to have this wonderful facility if there are deficiencies and problems with the operations of the bus service itself.  As of right now we are operating with more than a hundred buses from the fleet that are out of commission and we are going to have to build that fleet back up to the capacity that we need in order to provide adequate seats for the people who have to traverse the corporate area.   

We already have plans to purchase an additional forty buses which will not complete the deficit that we have but it will go part of the way.  As soon as it is possible we are going to make arrangements to increase that number.  We are going to have to improve not just in terms of the number of buses but in the operation of those buses, in the timeliness with which those buses arrive where they are suppose to arrive and depart from where they are to depart. 

I remember as a youngster growing up, you would know what time you are to leave home to get to the bus stop because you know what time the bus is supposed to be there.  As a matter of fact, as a boy growing up and taking that bus to school there used to be schedules at the bus stop protected by a glass casing that would tell you what time the bus was due, and I remember once, sitting in a bus going to a Manning Cup match, already late for the match and urging the bus driver to let's go because there is nobody else left to come on the bus, and I remember he looked at his watch and he said no, I am supposed to leave here at twenty seven minutes after four and I cannot leave here one minute before. 

We need to get back to that style of discipline and that's our certainty    in terms of the service that we provide to the commuting public.  There is another major area that we are going to have to tackle because it is one thing to have the buses properly assembled here and dispatched from here but if when they leave here and go on the roads, they are unable to move those passengers efficiently from here to where they want to go then much of the value of this centre will be lost. 

The nature of the traffic congestion in the corporate area is something that is going to undermine our efforts and our efficiency and productivity; it is something that has to be addressed. Many, many years ago, and I am talking about the 1960's, the Ministry of Communications and Works, as it then was, had identified a corridor starting at Mary Brown's corner that would have allowed for high speed expressway traffic to take traffic through the Corporate Area allowing them to exit at appropriate points. 

We lost that corridor because over the years much of that corridor has been built up and is no longer available but we have to find some other option. We have to find an alternative how to rationalize the transportation flow in the Corporate Area because the fact of the matter is that the streets and avenues and roadways in the Corporate Area were never built, were never designed to accommodate the volume of motor vehicle traffic that they have to contend with each day and therefore we are going to have to bring to bear all of the engineering skills, all of the planning skills that we have.  I have already asked Minister Henry to pull together all the studies that I know have been done, some of them going back a long time, some of them more recent but to pull together all the data that is there and to bring to Cabinet a proposal as to how best to deal with the traffic flow in the Corporate Area. How can it be rationalized, because we cannot continue to function if it takes people several hours to travel a few miles.  We cannot build an efficient city on that basis and it is something that we are going to have to tackle as a matter of priority.

We are going to be doing most of Half Way Tree because we recognize the importance of Half Way Tree. Half Way Tree was once an intersection; that is what its name implies.  Half Way Tree is no longer an intersection; Half Way Tree is the most heavily used urban centre, urban point anywhere in the Kingston and St. Andrew Metropolitan Area.  As has been pointed, out we have two hundred thousand commuters that come and go through Half Way Tree each day, and therefore, while we welcome this facility as an important improvement in the character of this important urban meeting point, there is more that will need to be done. There is more that can be done to really make Half Way Tree a modern twenty first century urban point with services being offered in a variety of areas, therefore I am very optimistic, I am very encouraged.  I cannot make the announcement yet, but on Monday of next week I will be holding discussions with a group of investors, again Belgian investors, towards a major development in Half Way Tree that will compliment this facility that we are opening today, and will really make Half Way Tree the central point of activity in the entire Kingston and St. Andrew area.

Today is a good day for the city of Kingston, for the Corporate Area, it is a good day for Jamaica.  I want to thank all of those who have been involved: the previous administration, I want to thank my Minister who I know was anxious to bring this to the point where it could be opened to the public, I want to thank the Belgian government as well, I want to thank the contractors, I want to thank the commercial bank, I want to thank all of you who have made this dream the reality that it has become today.  I want to urge the members of the public, this is your facility, take care of it, use it well and make sure that it becomes part of the heritage of the city of Kingston.  God bless you.