The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is ad­vis­ing cus­tomers in sev­er­al parts of North, Cen­tral and South Trinidad that they may ex­pe­ri­ence a tem­po­rary dis­rup­tion to their pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply due to es­sen­tial works be­ing car­ried out by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

Com­muters trav­el­ling along the East-West cor­ri­dor and from Cen­tral and South Trinidad in­to and out of Port-of-Spain are ex­pect­ed to face an­oth­er day of dis­rup­tion to­day, as Route Two and Three maxi taxi op­er­a­tors plan to con­tin­ue their three-day strike de­spite talks with Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our yes­ter­day.

From as ear­ly as 5 am yes­ter­day, maxi taxi dri­vers gath­ered at the Tarou­ba Fly­over to be­gin a mo­tor­cade bound for Port-of-Spain. They would dri­ve at 65 kmh dur­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty, one of sev­er­al is­sues they have with the Min­istry of Trans­port.

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.