De­spite leav­ing their homes ear­li­er than usu­al to try and work around the maxi taxi strike, com­muters were still left frus­trat­ed and dis­ap­point­ed yes­ter­day, as they wait­ed for as long as two hours be­cause there were not enough Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus­es to help al­le­vi­ate the back­log of com­muters.

Dri­vers op­er­at­ing pri­vate hire “PH” taxis in Cen­tral Trinidad re­port­ed in­creased busi­ness yes­ter­day, as a na­tion­wide maxi taxi strike dis­rupt­ed pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vices, leav­ing many com­muters scram­bling for al­ter­na­tive trav­el op­tions.

As thou­sands of com­muters were left scram­bling for trans­porta­tion dur­ing yes­ter­day’s na­tion­wide maxi-taxi strike, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro or­dered the de­ploy­ment of po­lice bus­es to trans­port strand­ed pas­sen­gers home.

Com­muters trav­el­ling out of San­gre Grande, who de­pend on maxi taxis for their trans­porta­tion, were forced to use Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) bus­es yes­ter­day, af­ter maxi taxi op­er­a­tors staged day one of their in­tend­ed three-day protest ac­tion.

To­ba­go maxi taxi dri­vers have ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with their Trinida­di­an coun­ter­parts, who with­held their ser­vices yes­ter­day, the first of three days of protests over in­dus­try con­cerns.

The Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) says it de­ployed ad­di­tion­al bus­es and pri­ori­tised trans­porta­tion for CSEC and CAPE stu­dents fol­low­ing the re­duc­tion in maxi taxi ser­vices yes­ter­day.

Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud says be­tween 15 and 20 per cent of com­muters head­ing in­to the cap­i­tal were late for work yes­ter­day, as the na­tion­wide maxi taxi protest dis­rupt­ed trans­port ser­vices.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (TTNCP­TA) has ap­pealed to maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to ex­er­cise re­straint in their protest ac­tion, not­ing that stu­dents are cur­rent­ly sit­ting the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) ex­am­i­na­tions.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Ken­neth Suratt, says the on­go­ing three-day maxi taxi strike has high­light­ed the unique chal­lenges faced by per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties when pub­lic trans­porta­tion ser­vices are dis­rupt­ed.

For­mer min­is­ter of works and trans­port Ro­han Sinanan says the con­cerns raised by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors are not friv­o­lous, al­though he would not light­ly sup­port in­dus­tri­al ac­tion that leaves com­muters strand­ed.

As cli­mate change in­ten­si­fies storms, flood­ing, droughts and coastal ero­sion across the Caribbean, re­gion­al lead­ers are call­ing for a fun­da­men­tal shift in how coun­tries pre­pare for dis­as­ters, from re­act­ing to crises to build­ing re­silience be­fore they oc­cur.

Six peo­ple were killed fol­low­ing a vi­o­lent night in south Trinidad in three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in less than sev­en hours, leav­ing po­lice scram­bling be­tween a stab­bing, a dou­ble mur­der and a triple killing. And a man was al­so found dead in Mor­vant as the week­end end­ed with a killing spree.