Drivers may resist it, but the City Council is intent on creating some order on the city streets, even if it makes you have to burn a few gallons more to get where you're going. Effective July 19th, you'll be given a ticket if you drive East West on Wilson Street. Wilson Street is, of course, the narrow two-lane road that connects Cinderella Plaza to Princess Margaret Drive adjacent to the Belize Mexico Institute. But the city planners say the street is just too narrow to safely support two lanes and at the end of this week, they're making it one-way. Traffic will only flow from West to East or from the Plaza to the Sandlighter's Promenade. The city's P.R. manager told us why:
The reason we are doing this, Alfonso is because we have had a lot of mishaps, vehicular mishaps going on on this street here, Wilson Street, because it's a very narrow street for one, and then when going that direction you approach a curve, a blind curve, that you can't see traffic coming this side, and traffic going that side cannot see on-coming vehicles. So it poses danger to drivers, so we have decided to make this street a one-way street. We are, like I had mentioned, we are carrying out a thorough investigation on all the streets within Belize City to see what street poses danger to drivers, pedestrians, you know, it's all a part of our effort to make Belize safer, cleaner and a better place to live. So as part of that commitment we are going through all the streets to see which one would be a better street to put as a one-way. Take into consideration, Amara Avenue and Wilson Street, right. You have other alternate routes that you can take, not just one alternate route but you have several directions that you can go that will take you to the same place that you are traveling and likewise with Amara Avenue, you know. You have the canal side and you have the Euphrates Avenue, you know. So, its not like you have one alternate route that you can travel on that will cause congestion. So, we are looking at all of that, we are looking at the effects it will cause when these streets become one-way, if we decide to put them one-way.
Recently, for similar safety reasons, city planners confined Amara Avenue to a one-way street.