ST MARY, Jamaica – There is now a safer and more affordable way to travel from Grande Hole in St Mary to Half-Way Tree in St Andrew.

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) has introduced the 52B bus service, which has ignited a wave of excitement among commuters traversing that route.

From as early as 5:30 am, the bus can be seen loading with passengers heading into the Corporate Area, and it continues to make trips throughout the day.

When the service commenced on February 3, Quality Analyst, Tasha Prehay, was among the first passengers. She recounts to JIS News that, “it was a good experience; it was reasonable [and] it was comfortable.”

She says on learning that the JUTC would be introducing the 52B service, she felt elated, as “on this route, it is expensive and, a lot of times, the [Coaster] buses travelling from Annotto Bay or Buff Bay are already full”.

“So, we have to take the taxis to go to Temple Hall and then another to Half-Way Tree, and sometimes they are slow,” Prehay adds.

Comparatively, she pays $100 on the 52B, non-stop from Grande Hole to Half-Way Tree. On other public-passenger vehicles, she pays upwards of $350.

“We’ll get to save more. The extra $200, we can put it down and by the end of the year we can, at least, do something [with it]. It might not be much, but every mickle mek a muckle,” Prehay says.

Last December, the JUTC also established two routes to St Thomas, bringing their service to that parish for the very first time.

Prehay welcomes this continued improvement of these rural parishes through  access to transportation in this form.

“Persons in rural areas always feel left out because they always feel like the Government only caters for persons living in urban areas. Seeing this now, we can say at least the Government is trying to make improvements for us,” she tells JIS News.

Student Nurse, Jenelle Anderson, is also over the moon about the 52B service, pointing out that, “it’s a cheaper and safer way [to travel]”.

She is optimistic that the service will continue to improve and will become consistently reliable over time.

Grade-nine student, Rolston Fordes, similarly shares that other forms of public transportation sometimes get him to school late, pointing out that he is banking on the 52B to solve that challenge.

This positive feedback from commuters comes as no surprise to Member of Parliament (MP) for St Mary South Eastern and Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Norman Dunn.

“You can see when something really makes sense [through] the response from the persons who are benefiting, and the response is just tremendous,” he tells JIS News.

The MP points out that the new route has long been advocated for and that a feasibility study was done.

However, given the constituency’s closeness to the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA), Dunn says he was confident the route would have been deemed feasible.

“I know it would have been an impactful route because there are so many persons who travel between that point, especially between Grande Hole and Kingston. We knew that it would have been a very good move for our residents and for JUTC in particular,” he adds.

During the first week of the service, the JUTC advertised that the 52B would depart from Castleton Gardens. This was later changed to Grande Hole on February 7, based on the residents’ feedback.

According to Dunn, some commuters expressed security challenges in getting to Castleton, especially for the 5:30 am bus.

“Not only that, Grande Hole also serves almost as… a meeting spot. So there would have been a better terminus rather than Castleton. I am happy that the Minister (of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, Daryl Vaz, and his team at the JUTC acceded to that wish and are now going to Grande Hole,” Dunn says.

With the expected arrival of 100 new JUTC buses in June, the MP is optimistic that the State entity’s service could be extended deeper into the constituency and other parts of rural Jamaica.

“Rural people believe that they are now benefiting from something they have always advocated for. Public transport in this form was mainly to the KMA. But persons in rural Jamaica always feel left out, and this is a wonderful move by the Government,” Dunn says.

–         JIS