And while the PSU says a future government would be running a red with retrenchment - the Belize City Council has no problem with red lights, or green, or yellow… they've installed new traffic lights around the city, just in time for elections. The councillor responsible for traffic, who also doubles as the PUP candidate for Queen Square, insists that this was merely a coincidence. Instead, Allan Pollard explained that these projects have been in the pipeline for some time and residents of the areas were concerned for their safety.
Allan Pollard, Councillor
"We had these proposals I think from 2018. We decided that we will look at four intersections and try to introduce all four. Like he said, we had a timeline, and we had a lot of factors behind the scenes, finance being one of the main ones. If we could have done this from the time we introduced it at council, if the resources allowed us to do that, it would have been then. But like I said, we stuck to the timeline, we waited until funds were available, and funds were available to do two, so we did that now. It just so happens and coincidence that we're two weeks away from elections and some would say it's opportune time but like I said, although I am in the race for general elections, my work and my tenure at the city council is not over so I still have to push on."
"It will take some getting used to, however, the congestion, I would take the congestion over a child getting hurt here, over somebody getting, worse case scenario, losing their lives here because of some terrible accident. I would take the congestion anyday. And this is something that the area representative, Mr Fonseca could attest to. We had a public meeting where residents from the Belama area who came out and expressed their concerns and this was one of their key problems. They told us that this is a hotspot for them."
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"These intersections most of the time create a bottleneck, sometimes it's very unsafe for children attending school, the elderly. We just can't continue along that same path where we deal with the vehicular traffic but we had to build a component where the lights also speaks to pedestrian as well."
"People by nature noh like change, people say you di slow down traffic. We need to slow down traffic. We need to do that."
The lights were installed at the intersections of Albert Hoy and Chetumal Streets and Faber's Road and Central American Boulevard. According to Pollard, the council has plans to install more lights in other areas.
