Council moving to address congestion in Highgate
HIGHGATE, St Mary — New parking arrangements and an alternative route to the petrol station in Highgate are being considered as the St Mary Municipal Corporation contemplates a solution to the issue of congestion in the town.
“When you pass through Highgate sometimes on a bad day it can take you half an hour to go through the town or you can’t pass,” said chairman of the municipality Richard Creary during a recent community meeting at St Mary’s Anglican Church Hall in Port Maria.
He said trucks dropping off goods at the various business establishments in the town centre are among the main contributors to the problem.
“We find that a lot of times the trucks take up the entire parking in Highgate, and when they can’t find any parking they park in the middle of the road to deliver [goods]. So we are cognisant of that and we are looking at ways [to address it],” Creary added.
One of the possible solutions, he argued, is to create designated parking spaces for the trucks.
“They will only be allowed to park in those areas. So, if there is one truck doing deliveries in the parking area, you wait outside the town limit until that truck moves. We are looking at whether [to create] one or two such spaces and you would only be allowed to unload in them,” Creary said.
He also stated that another major contributor to the congestion are the vehicles that go on Main Street to fill up on petrol.
“We are looking at creating a road that would lead from Mr Haber’s gas station, back onto the bypass road because a lot of the traffic that comes into the town comes to that gas station, actually,” Creary told the gathering. He did not give a timeline for implementation of the initiatives.