KINGSTON, Jamaica—The Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation is rolling out new parking arrangements for taxi operators in Downtown Kingston, in a move to ease traffic congestion and improve road safety.

The new parking arrangements are expected to begin as a pilot project, with over 2,500 taxi operators expected to benefit from the rollout.

“Myself and my team have been lobbying for parking downtown for well over seven years. But over the past two years and some months, we have been, with this new mayor, we have been going at pace, actually on a monthly basis and therefore, the hard work he has put in with the KSAC team has paid off today and I think we have more to do. We’re coming to Half-Way -Tree and Papine shortly, but right now we’re going to focus on downtown to see what can be done in terms of discipline, and then we’ll move to other areas,” said Edgerton Newman, president of TODSS, Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services.

He described the pilot project as an historic moment for transport operators in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR) and in downtown Kingston, particularly.

“What was said by the mayor [Andrew Swaby] today is, one that gives us hope that a change is coming for the transport sector and if we continue on this trend, of course, the 2030 vision will be upheld by the public transport sector. So we want to thank the mayor and his team for sticking with us, sticking to the task ahead. And today we can say to our operators, come tomorrow morning, zero tolerance. We have to do our part,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mayor of Kingston Andrew Swaby said the initiative is particularly important in bringing law and order to the shopping district.

“We have to have some law and order in the city. I’m starting right there. I’m tired of driving down Upper King Street and taxi man them block up the road, two side of the road,” he noted.

He noted that this is particularly important as it gets closer to the festive season.

“We want to make sure that we go into the Christmas season in a little bit more order downtown because the normal person they’re not coming to shop in a chaos. So what we are trying to do is organise the place in a way where more patrons will come downtown and will utilise your service because you know that there’s chaos also, pickpocketing, extortion, and all of those things take place,” he said.