Bicycle and coalpot economies

Wayne Kublalsingh

There is nothing wrong, from the developmental point of view, with the bicycle or coalpot. The wrong is to pull them out as a last gasp effort to save the economic and financial blunders of your leadership group.

If bicycles and coalpots were believed to be so good, they would have been put into the PNM manifestos of 2015 and 2020.

The highest per-capita use of bicycles are to be found in the most astutely developed nations. The Scandinavian nations. And the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France. And just a little way behind China and Japan. In cities such as Munster, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Amsterdem, and Hangzhou, approximately 30 per cent of the population use the bicycle; may ride from one end of the city to the other, along formulated grids, and in relative safety, that is compared with cities with no grid. The bicycle’s contribution to savings and thus GDP growth is substantial.

Three days ago, on October 10, our Works Minister Rohan Sinanan, speaking before a Standing Finance Committee of Parliament, informed members that his Government intends to proffer international tenders for a transportation plan for Trinidad and Tobago. I have written the Minister requesting that I, for free, and indeed other persons locally, be part of any policy and planning formulation for such a transport plan.

First, our transport systems require a science-led diversification. How scientific, and how genuinely diverse will it be? How genuinely knowledgeable would the global planners be with the economic, spatial, relief and hydrological characteristics of TT? We have seen governments going ahead with plans, Google mapped and hatched, without understanding the ground on which they were working, choosing bad routes, designs and hydraulic systems. To mitigate against popular antagonism or uprising, the state needs to engage significantly with local communities, experts and planners, as a fundamental step.

Second, is the government embarking on this venture now because they are to receive funding from some global bank, the World Bank, IDB, the Development Bank of Latin America? And international tender is one of the funding pre-requisites? Better scientific and sustainable planning and policy than the illusions of cheap international money. It is not so much that our Independence agenda of 1962 has failed us. It is that the forces which created the need for this agenda in the first place, the forces which conquered us and made us dependent, in economic and psychological bondage, have remained.

Third, at a meeting with the Highway Reroute Movement in 2014, Dr Rowley insisted that if he got the opportunity to be PM, he would go for rail transport. However, better an affordable, reliable and decently paced train – no need for rapid. Better to head to rail and train builders in India, China, Venezuela, do your own planning, policy, feasibility, on your own socio-economic and hydrological terms, and make a deal. Better to develop your own hydraulics for this system, starting with two basic lines, East–West, and North–South, since a great part would be constructed in former Caroni (1975) Ltd floodplain lands.

Fourth. Better we devise our own bicycle grid in towns and between them, with considerations of extreme climate event impacts, population density, accidents, theft, and safety. Better we develop our own small and medium water craft manufacture, inflatables, starting at our current Universities and boat manufacturers. Better we develop broadband and digital width, to mitigate our "hell in a coconut shell" combustion-engine traffic, which puts a horrendous burden on our economy, health, ecology and productivity.

Many persons rush to buy coalpots and chulas. Nostalgia, the allure of provincial or country life. We have seen the signs, trends, for over 20 years now, of the unfolding new era. Government destitution, that is, its inability to sustain public employment and welfare supports. The extremes of climate change, storms, flooding and landslides. The financial woes of publicly-owned corporations, our water and electricity providers. Sooner or later, communities will, either by foresight or force, have to democratize, detach, partly or wholly, from such obsolescent governance grids.

I have advocated, to the HDC, the EMA and others, an ASH programme, the building of Affordable Sustainable Homesteads, loaded with optimum photonic (solar) and protonic (computer) energy. The building of our own Caribbean turbines, solar panels, storage systems, either locally, or if we are indeed that physics-challenged, by global partners. The concept of coalpot and chulha is important. A cooking utensil, a grill, a tawah, a source of fire and heat, fired up, not by T&TEC, but by renewable energy. A reinvented stove. Nothing new under the sun is ever invented, except for re-modified concepts.