by Rick Lowe
Yep, you read that headline correctly.
We're told good governance is favouritism for no one group over another, but Taxi spaces were moved from Bay Street for paving etc, and because a taxi driver is more than a driver and is the front line face and voice of our people, they deserve the spaces back!
Here's what Mrs. Glenys Hanna-Martin, Minister of Transport and Aviation is quoted as saying: “Good governance is fair and even-handed it must never be seen to allow the interest of one sector to arise over and above the interest of another sector,” More…
She goes on to say, “The taxi driver is more than a driver, he or she is the front line face and voice of our people”.
I'm sorry, but if governance is fair and even handed, and with parking spaces remaining a premium on Bay Street, I guess taxi drivers are more equal than the rest of us.
Of course, with any profession there are good and bad people, but frankly this amounts to little more than rhetoric.
Yes indeed! I really wonder if they take the time to understand their own statements before reading them?
Just to remphasise, good governance is taxi parking on Bay Street. Go figure?
Good governance includes a vision to do things that have a lasting positive effect.
The nonsense about Bay Street should have stopped a long, long time ago! The street should have been changed permanently by (a) re-defining it as a mile-long shopping zone; (b) paving it with cobblestones (that can last for centuries); and (c) pedestrianising it and turning it into a ‘walking street’.
This would keep Taxis, Buses and cars away so our visitors (and our people) can shop in peace!
The common sense solution would be to put parking meters on the main Bay Street. Allowing whomever wanted to park there during peak hours Mon-Sat 9am- 5pm.(work and shopping crowd) Fri-Sat 10pm-3am (club going crowd)to do so for a fee. It would also raise govt. revenue too, and perhaps could be used to help maintain the Bay Street area etc. However it’s good governance because the FNM moved them off, so now they are the PLP must put them back. The sad thing is this is not even a principled move because if the FNM had allowed them to stay the PLP probably would have moved them off Bay Street. Politics is slowly but surely killing this country.
I don’t get it.There are loading zones for delivery purposes that the police allow taxis & others to park in but if a delivery van parks in anything other than a loading zone(because they are all taken up by others)we get a ticket.Common sense is dead & buried for sure.I know there are good & bad in all but the reputation of the taxi driver’s on the front lines is not the best.Tourists on cruse ships have witnessed physical fighting on the dock by them etc.
I recently spent a few days on Paradise Island, and for the first time was obliged to use taxis. Of the approximately 10 or 12 that I used, only two were willing to chat and to point out places of interest.
The remain drove like maniacs, literally flat out while talking on the phone…..trips to the airport were hair raising.
They left me with the feeling I was being ripped off….. the yfares being so high. Also there was great variance in the charges for the same trip.
If these individuals represent the front line face and voice of our people…God help us.
I’m afraid they represent the front line in the worst of what the Bahamas has to offer.I have had the same complaints from people coming in to see us time & time again.Sorry to say I do not think this will change especially since “we in charge now” came into play.