Prospect residents rejoice over new road blocks

Prospects residents Thursday night (23 November) met with Government and Police leaders to discuss what can be done about alleviating traffic in the area and they say the recent blocking of Poindexter Road to morning traffic is helping.
President of the Prospect Community Council Sabrina Turner says traffic woes are nothing to Prospect, but police blocking a section of Poindexter road in the mornings is making a difference.

“You would not understand how much relief it has brought to the residents, there is a constant flow, we don’t have the speeding vehicles anymore, it’s almost like a race track that has been resolved,” said Mrs. Turner.

Residents have been impacted by people cutting through Poindexter Road and Patrick’s Island to try and beat the morning traffic.

“A lot of these people are not living there, they are just trying to create a shortcut to save themselves time, but they’re also causing hazards to our residents,” said Mrs. Turner.

Resident Donna Wilson, she said the blocks have shortened the time drastically when she leaves home in the morning.

“It was difficult, it was frustrating it was sitting on a road for 15-17 minutes just to get to the top of the road and this is Prospect Drive,” said Mrs. Wilson.

For Councilor Austin Harris, he and Premier Hon. Alden McLaughlin partnered together to help solve the traffic problem.

“We basically listened to our respective constituency and passed that request up the chain of command to the police who were more than willing to close down Poindexter from 7-9 in the morning, for the benefit of our residents,” said MLA for Prospect, Austin Harris.

Although Mr. Harris understands the hassle commuters coming from more eastern districts face in morning traffic, he said help is on the way.

“My heart goes out to the eastern districts, but as everyone can see, there is major road infrastructure taking place, works underway and we just ask the motoring public to continue to exercise patients with us as we as we try to get to that point,” said Mr. Harris.

In the meeting, police said they’ll have officers present at Poindexter Road during the morning commute, other days they won’t like Friday, just to check in on what’s happening.

The audience members submitted ideas and opinions to the R.C.I.P.S on how to better manage the morning traffic situation, which have been taken into consideration.