And while that's pure political spin - at least it's spinning better than golf cart wheels. On San Pedro streets. The fast growing town has become synonymous with traffic jams and today we tried to find out why:
This is San Pedro's traffic snarl - you'll find this kind of flow at any hour from 6:30 in the morning till late at night. It's way busier than Albert Street in Belize City.
And it's gotten worse over the past few years with the influx of more vehicles and golf carts.
But, who is to blame? Is it a regulatory problem? Did the town council give out too many licenses?
Wally Nunez, Mayor
"That we are looking as a council different measures to be able to control traffic. There is also we're working in partnership with the Traffic Control Committee to see how best we can alleviate some of that traffic and the different times that certain types of vehicles are allowed on the streets."
About 25% of the town council's nine million dollars in revenue comes from licensing vehicles but who's keeping track?:
Jules Vasquez
"Is there a system where you all have an accurate inventory of the number of vehicles licensed? Is there a system that you all can refer to and say, oh yes, we have X number license in January, X number in February, etc. I have heard that such a system is lacking or not working."
Wally Nunez, Mayor
"Not anymore. We just got our traffic department fully on board with the new municipality, whereby we can track all of that, how many vehicles are being registered, how many vehicles are registered in the entire island."
"Before everything was done only manually, there was only records on files. And it has been quite a task for our department to be putting all of this data into the new municipality."
Jules Vasquez
"In the interim, might some, you know, some errant officers or some persons have been using that system, manipulating that system for the purpose of hustling."
Wally Nunez, Mayor
"For that reason we had to change to the new municipality because initially when we took office there was a lot of discrepancies going on in the traffic department. It was like a complete overhaul that we had to do to the entire department and the system that was in place because there was a lot of things that were not adding up."
"We couldn't be checking to see how much tickets were issued. There was no record of how much stickers were handed out."
But the area rep says they have to look long term:
Jules Vasquez
"This problem has been coming for quite a while but there seems to have been an explosion of issuance of vehicle and golf cart licenses since the PUP took office."
"As the area representative this is a quality of life issue. San Pedranos are serious about their quality of life and this erodes that. What can be done about it? And certainly this has to be an issue of vexation between yourself and the Town Council. Which licenses these vehicle."
Abner Andre Perez, BRS Area Rep
"Well, this is where it is important that the council and myself we work together. Traffic, the traffic problem has not only been here today, it has been playing also many years. Many things, many factors."
"Development of this community continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Fastest growing community in the entire country. Now we cannot just sit here and say, okay, we're growing and we can't help it anymore."
"This is where we're working, for example. Many things we have to look long term. Secondly is that we're working along with the traffic committee. The traffic committee is that, for example, people, everybody wants golf carts."
"So nowhere concentrating, those that live across, we're giving consideration. People want to have fancy rides, the Polaris and everything. So we're saying that you're living in town, there's no need for Polaris."
"I'm using that as an example. The 4x4 that are very big and noisy. We understand that up north, there's a lot of development. The rules are not fully developed, so it's justifiable. So that's the way how we're doing it."
