And while the City Council’s internal battle is the lead story tonight, on any other evening, this newscast would have led with the fuss in the transport industry. The Ministry of Transport has come up with a new zoning policy, meaning that the apportioning of bus runs will now be done across three zones, northern, southern and western. It is a radically different approach which favours, or protects, small operators and puts a check on larger operators. And the company that stands to lose the most is National Transport, the re-incarnated Novelo’s – and as you may have heard, they are not pleased. So while the new zoning arrangements were outlined to the press today by the Transport Department officials, the Novelo’s staged a good-sized protest outside. The press conference was held at – of all places – the Raccoon Street Police Station, and the main presentation was made by Ministry CEO George Lovell. He says the move to a zone system is all about the commuters.
George Lovell, CEO – Transport
“First of all we are looking at the commuters. Secondly we were not looking at having any monopoly whatever and the reason why we do not wish to have any one bus provider that can hold the commuters or the public at ransom.”
Rhenae Nunez, Positive Vibes
“Was this happening though?”
George Lovell,
“We wouldn’t want to be in a position where we have to prove ourselves otherwise. First of all overcrowded-ness, racing on the highway, just think about the safety aspects and I can assure you that you will come up with more than three reasons, just thinking about the safety aspects, the overcrowded buses. If a vehicle does not meet the standards or a bus it will not be allowed to leave a terminal. If there is something that happens on the highway in terms of overcrowded-ness where you can’t really sit because of the overcrowded-ness and that sort of thing, those things will be monitored and enforced by the Transport Department. All of these approved schedules will be posted in most public areas or all known public areas that we have so that people can understand when a particular run will go from a particular location. There is no secret in this operation and we will try and make it as open as possible and as available as possible.”
Lovell said that they had originally planned to hold the press conference in Belmopan, but changed to Belize City when they discovered that no press would show up and at that time, the only conference room he could find was the one at Raccoon Street. The new zone runs go into effect on October 19th.
