BVI News

Major territorial transportation plan being developed, ready in 3 months

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A territorial transportation policy and emergency response plan is being developed in the British Virgin Islands and is expected to be presented to Cabinet within three months.

This policy/plan is promised to improve the public transportation bus service across the main island of Tortola.

Acting Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Communications and Works, Mr Andrew St Hilaire said the policy/plan will also factor in the transportation needs of the sister islands.

“We are aware that multi-modal transportation is inevitable for the territory which will allow greater accessibility to the islands throughout the territory,” St Hilaire said.

The acting deputy secretary said authorities have already begun to identify 84 bus stops and are working on designs for the various types of stops.

Discussions are also being had to determine ‘control and regulatory requirements’ such as bus scheduling and fares.

“We are aware that the policy must take into consideration various aspects of transportation through public and private endeavours. We will develop a policy that addresses the issues related to national security, globalisation, deregulation and privatisation and trends in transportation systems, as well as the various instruments that will help to support and sustain a Territorial Transportation System,” St Hillarie said.

He was speaking at a meeting with ‘key stakeholders’ in the transportation industry recently.

Procedures for ‘major emergencies’ in transportation network

A media release from the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) said the meeting involved comprehensive discussions on designing a system that can ‘accommodate the needs of residents and visitors while fully considering the geographical spread of the islands’.

As for the emergency aspect of the policy/plan, DDM director Sharleen DaBreo said considerations are being given for ‘further development’ of emergency procedures that should be employed in the event of major emergencies occurring within the transportation network.

“We have therefore reached out to the Emergency Management Accreditation Programme to guide this discussion so that we are aware of the standards that would be needed for the development of these procedures,” she said.

According to the aforesaid media release, the policy/plan will include “recommendations on the development of an appropriate set of concepts and proposals that can be established to support the functioning and performance of a territorial public transportation system”.

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13 Comments

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  1. Great says:

    Looking forward to see this put in place.

    Like 13
  2. TurtleDove says:

    This is a good thing.

    Hopefully the communities are involved on where to place the bus stops. The dollar busses in ST Thomas seems to be working well. Not saying we have to do the same but maybe it’s worth a look. This could possible reduce the # of cars on the road if design properly.

    Like 17
  3. Me says:

    The first thing they need to stop is these buses leaving passengers in the middle of the road (left Hand Drive)they should be ban from operating in the BVI., I am very surprised that no one has been kill as yet…

    Like 16
    Dislike 4
  4. Ausar says:

    This is great news!

  5. Route licenses says:

    Sint Maarten / St. Martin licenses “route taxis”, really busses on many of the routes, but the route taxis run forth and back on their licensed routes, with signage in their windows saying their final destination. Seems to work well.

    • CW says:

      They use a similar system in tourism areas all across the US, Canada and parts of Europe. Very helpful for getting tourists to places a bit harder to find or out of the way

  6. Hit the nail on the head says:

    Thanks Honourable Rymer. This should have been done a long time ago. Why government took so long to deal with this? Because of this certain shopping malls outside of town are suffering because of lack of consistent public transportation going that route. Additionally, many workers, especially, labourers, and hotel and restaurant staff are catching hell to get to and from work on the wages that they work for and the convenience. Kudos to those private companies who were trying a thing over the years to help the situation.

  7. Hit the nail on the head says:

    I am waiting on the medallion system for the taxi industry as well

  8. Mafia says:

    Lets see if the Taxi mafia puts a stop to this the way they have in the past.

  9. Yes says:

    At least school children would not have to be catching ride.

  10. Considerate says:

    They need to start with all of those outdated right hand car coming from Japan

  11. Shark says:

    they need to put the powers back into the taxi’s.you have the S plates that defines Shuttle.why went tourists at the ports of entry ask for a taxi to go to various charter companies staff from the tourist board direct them To The shuttle busses as taxi’s.they need to eliminate the Shuttle, it’s causing a big problem in the taxi industry.

  12. Sambit says:

    Finally!!! It was about time.

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