Woodbrook roads in deplorable state

THE EDITOR: Maybe it's because the people of Woodbrook are not given to burning tyres or blocking roadways that the Port of Spain City Corporation believes it can have the roads of this suburb in the deplorable state they are currently in.

While many millions of dollars are being poured into contractors' hands to refurbish Ariapita Avenue over and over again, not a cent can be found for even a pothole squad to be formed to alleviate the stress motorists feel every day navigating Woodbrook streets.

Take where I live, Rosalino Street, for instance. This street was last milled and paved just before the 1986 election. One side of the sidewalk was redone about 20 years ago and repairs to the other side were never even started.

The road itself, one of the few open streets in Woodbrook granting access from Wrightson Road to Ariapita Avenue, is heavily trafficked with everything from maxi-taxis to large freight containers on a daily basis. Yet the road is riddled with potholes, with two huge ones right in front of my gate.

I suspect this must be a plan by the authorities to keep traffic slowly moving so as not to bounce down any of the visitors to the bevy of mas camps that litter our street. I mean, that must be it. What other reason can there be for allowing such a deplorable road surface?

Lest one thinks I have been inactive, I have called WASA (no answer), the city engineer's office (no help), the PoS Corporation itself (they said they will look into it – three years now), and I have even spoken with the councillor for the area on several occasion. He seems a pleasant enough person but he can also bring no relief since, apparently (from what I was told), no one has enough hot mix to do the job.

Never mind that other roads that do not need it are being maintained, like Ariapita Avenue (again) on which millions must have been spent to tile the sidewalks, have them broken and retile again many times.

Why do we pay taxes? I know when I lived abroad the property taxes were used for the general upkeep of the area – roads, garbage collection, pruning trees, etc. In Trinidad it seems as if all monies go into the Consolidated Fund and then are used to send squads on junkets all over the world on nebulous attempts to "spread we culture," or other ridiculous ways we spend precious funds.

This is a precarious situation we find ourselves in.

As part of PoS South, the voices of Woodbrook residents will never be heard since we are twinned with an area that never votes anything, so there's no threat of losing the seat in elections.

Maybe I should dress my grandchildren in some old clothes and have them stand on the roadway, all teary-eyed and snotty-nosed, and burn some tyres and block the roads. I may be arrested but at least I would highlight this indignity visited upon us.

DR ZEEFAH NIMA

Woodbrook