THE Transport Authority on Tuesday broke ground for the $25-million transportation centre in Linstead, St Catherine – for which work is set to begin on August 5 and should be completed within four months.

When complete, the centre, which is being erected at 23 King Street on just under one acre of land, will be able to accommodate 450 taxis and 53 buses at different times during the day. It will boast, among other things, concession booths, a taxi association office, pedestrian walkways and coloured interlocking paving stones instead of asphalt or concrete.

At the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony on Tuesday, Minister of Housing, Transport, Water and Works, Robert Pickersgill, who has oversight responsibility for the Transport Authority, said the work will be undertaken in two phases: the first will be done by the National Works Agency (NWA), and the other by a contractor who has not yet been selected since the project is still out to tender.

He pointed out that the provision of a modern, safe, reliable and efficient transportation system was critical to the development of any economy and made reference to the $5-billion transportation centre in Half-Way-Tree. That project is being funded by the Belgian government.

“The Linstead Transportation Centre will be similar but on a smaller scale,” Pickersgill said Tuesday.

“…The construction of this centre is no coincidence; it is part of a deliberate strategy by my ministry to increase access for rural Jamaicans to reliable and efficient transportation services,” added Pickersgill, who is also member of parliament for the St Catherine North West const-ituency of which Linstead is a part.

Linstead serves as a transportation hub in rural St Catherine, linking towns such as Spanish Town, Bog Walk, Guys Hill, Ewarton and Banbury, and hosts huge amounts of vehicular and pedestrian traffic each day. In an attempt to regulate that flow, last December the ministry built a taxi stand close to where the transportation centre will sit. However, while there are still some taximen who refuse to pay the $100-per-day fee to use the facility, Deputy Superintendent Dean Johnson of the Linstead Police said there has been a notable reduction of congestion in the busy town.

On Tuesday, he told the Observer that traffic cops were confident the centre will further relieve traffic congestion in the area because it will reduce the incidence of buses and taxis stopping in the streets and will give the town a look of order.

He also said the transportation centre should enhance the safety of commuters who will be given the opportunity to board public passenger vehicles in a controlled environment.