No matter how many police traffic officers are placed each morning and afternoon in Labasa Town to control traffic, the congestion will still remain.
I believe the cause of traffic jam in Labasa Town is the closure of Jaduram St to all traffic except buses and not the number of vehicles as the increase is not overly huge. (Average number of vehicles registered at LTA Labasa is less than 80 per month I believe).
I believe while urban population has increased by 12 per cent, population of the entire Northern Division has seen an increase of only 5 per cent between 1996 and 2014 (est.). There was very little traffic jam prior to 2014.
The closure of Jaduram St has created a limited capacity street. In reality, it is system inefficiencies that cause traffic holdup.
Traffic congestion is related to one or two sets of conditions — either becuase of inefficiencies within the traffic flow system or to the demand placed on the system or to a mixture of both.
In Labasa, I believe the former has led to demand on the traffic flow system.
Usually, traffic congestion in a small town reflects poor planning. In typical monocentric models, bulk of employment is held by the town affecting local traffic circulation but it can be taken care of if traffic flow system is clearly organised.
Before FRA decided to make changes to part usage of Jaduram St, surely a feasibility study would have been conducted by FRA to weigh strengths and benefits. I have been seeking a copy of this report since 2016, but so far I have not been given a copy by authorities. If no study was done by FRA before closing Jaduram St to all other traffic, then I believe it reflects a unilateral and a rather unsubstantiated decision.
I believe because of this decision, the public in the North is suffering. FRA in 2014 had stated that the new layout of the bus stand will provide channelling for buses so that buses line up in an orderly fashion.
Nothing as such has eventuated.
FRA had also said the new bus stand would accommodate 25 buses. Nothing much has changed.
The bus stand is still congested just as it was in the past, not to mention the pollution and harm to human health from running bus engines.
Vehicles crawl through the market taxi stand lane during peak hours. Each vehicle impairs mobility of another on both sides of the main town. I have stated before that through my survey, it takes an average of 26 minutes (between Monday and Friday) to travel 2km from Qawa bridge near FSC to Labasa Town between 7.15am and 8am. This is a three-minute drive.
Ministers who come to Labasa do not feel any effect of traffic congestion as police quickly intervene and halt all traffic to give way to ministerial vehicles and entourage.
It is the ordinary public who feels the real impact daily. All of it has a bearing on national productivity at the end. While a by-pass road across town will resolve this, the idea seems to pass the minds of those who should have acted on it long ago.
I believe traffic jam in Labasa has a simple solution-that is to open up Jaduram St to all traffic, give one lane to buses on the left side of Jaduram St and cut out the unnecessary double parking of buses on this street. It will immediately reduce traffic congestion. If FRA needs assistance to solve traffic congestion in Labasa, I am prepared to provide some support on this free of charge. It’s a small matter to resolve.
