Imagine losing an entire month of your life every year sitting in traffic! That’s exactly what’s happening in Trinidad and Tobago.
According to research presented by the Caribbean Development Bank, the average commuter in Trinidad spends 793 hours in traffic annually.
That’s 33 full days every year, at an estimated economic cost of more than one percent of GDP.
To put that in dollar terms, that’s more than US$360 million or TT$2.5 billion lost every year simply because people can’t move around efficiently.
Now experts are warning that traffic congestion has become one of the biggest hidden drags on economic growth across the Caribbean.
At a recent CDB conference, President Daniel Best argued that traffic is no longer just a transportation problem.
“Congestion is a productivity issue, a public health issue, a climate issue, a competitiveness issue. And at its core, it is a development issue.”
-Daniel Best
President, Caribbean Development Bank
Transport engineer Dr. Ray Furlong says Caribbean governments have spent decades focusing on roads and cars, while neglecting public transportation and broader mobility planning.
The result has been more people depending on private vehicles, which makes congestion worse.
“Congestion, traffic congestion, is only reduced when you remove vehicles from the road, not divert them to the next road.”
-Dr. Ray Furlong, Transport Engineer
Furlong says many countries continue trying to solve traffic by expanding road networks, but evidence from cities around the world suggests that strategy has limits.
Instead, he argues that governments need to make public transportation more attractive, reliable and efficient.
One audience member from Jamaica raised a concern familiar across the Caribbean — that many people see public transport as something for lower-income groups rather than a practical alternative to driving.
Furlong’s response was blunt.
“Until you make public transport sexy, you’re not going to enjoy it.”
He says improving scheduling, reliability, safety and convenience will be critical if governments want more people to leave their cars at home.
The Caribbean Development Bank agrees.
Its officials say the solution isn’t simply building more roads. Instead, countries need a combination of better public transportation, smarter traffic management, improved urban planning, stronger data collection and policies that reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicles on the road.
Because every hour spent sitting in traffic is an hour that workers aren’t producing, businesses aren’t growing, and economies aren’t moving forward.
And that’s the Bottom Line.
So how much time do you lose in traffic every week? And would you be willing to give up driving if public transportation became faster, safer and more reliable?
