Presently, there are only two sets of functioning traffic lights in Belize; and they are in Belize City – the country’s most populous municipality. But Orange Walk’s Town Board says that town of 41,000 needs traffic lights as well. A major highway doubles as that town’s main street and it poses serious speeding risks. At an event in Orange Walk Town today, Mayor Ravel Gonzalez unveiled plans to put up three traffic lights in that municipality. He told our affiliates at Channel 10 why it is necessary.
Ravel Gonzalez, Mayor – Orange Walk Town
“Well definitely Orange Walk is one of the fastest growing towns in the country. We have seen an increase of traffic, we’ve seen an increase of population. Orange Walk presently has close to 47,000 inhabitants, the district itself has close to 13,000 vehicles. But more to that, we have a lot of vehicles that travel from Corozal to Belize and use our Belize-Corozal Road which in itself creates different points of congestion, especially in the morning hours when children want to take their children to school and where public servant s and teachers want to go to work.
Definitely we will be saving lives. The particular junction with Belize-Corozal Road with San Antonio Road we have seen numerous accidents there. Last year itself a lady lost both legs in a traffic accident that occurred early morning. We believe that having the traffic light system will save lives and in particular it will address the need of the students that cross from the west side to the east side of Orange Walk in order to go to school.”
We stress that the lights you saw in those images are just simulations of what the real ones will look like. The sets of lights will cost $100,000 and government will provide $40,000 of that. They are being provided and installed by a company from Puebla, Mexico. In the long term, they may install two more.
