Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

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.

Sev­er­al PH dri­vers ad­mit­ted that they ex­pand­ed be­yond their usu­al vil­lage routes to serve ar­eas tra­di­tion­al­ly cov­ered by maxi-taxis, seek­ing to cap­i­talise on the trans­port gap cre­at­ed by the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

One PH dri­ver, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the strike pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn ad­di­tion­al in­come amid ris­ing liv­ing costs.

“I am try­ing to make an hon­est liv­ing. I look­ing to eat ah food. Every day the cost of liv­ing is go­ing up, so peo­ple have to find ways to sur­vive. If the maxi taxi dri­vers do not want the mon­ey, we will glad­ly take it,” he said.

The dri­ver al­so claimed some in­di­vid­u­als em­ployed in the pub­lic sec­tor were in­volved in the PH taxi trade, ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly.

At the Ch­agua­nas maxi taxi stand, ac­tiv­i­ty was no­tice­ably re­duced, with on­ly two maxi taxis parked at the hub. How­ev­er, the dri­vers said they were await­ing a mo­tor­cade com­ing from Tarou­ba that was or­gan­ised as part of the strike ac­tion.

Maxi taxi op­er­a­tors have com­plained about what they de­scribed as on­go­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the in­dus­try, in­clud­ing com­pe­ti­tion from PH taxis and what they al­leged is ex­ces­sive scruti­ny from law en­force­ment.

One dri­ver claimed that op­er­a­tors were fre­quent­ly stopped by po­lice of­fi­cers and asked to pro­duce ra­dio per­mits.

“We have to deal with PH dri­vers and ha­rass­ment from po­lice. They stop us and ask for AM/FM ra­dio per­mits, and there is no AM ra­dio ser­vice in Trinidad any­more,” he said.

The dri­vers al­so re­newed calls for the con­struc­tion of a ded­i­cat­ed trans­port hub in Ch­agua­nas, ques­tion­ing when the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion will com­plete a pro­posed maxi taxi ter­mi­nal at the site of the for­mer health cen­tre along the South­ern Main Road.

Com­muters ex­pressed mixed re­ac­tions to the strike, with some voic­ing frus­tra­tion over the dis­rup­tion.

One woman wait­ing for trans­porta­tion said re­peat­ed in­dus­tri­al ac­tion could alien­ate pas­sen­gers.

“If they keep strik­ing, I may strike on them,” she said. “For the last 10 years they did not strike. Gas prices went up many times, and now what they are do­ing seems po­lit­i­cal. I will be tak­ing a taxi to­mor­row.”

De­spite the strike, trans­port ser­vices grad­u­al­ly re­sumed in some ar­eas. By mid-af­ter­noon, sev­er­al maxi taxis were ob­served op­er­at­ing along the South­ern Main Road cor­ri­dor be­tween Ch­agua­nas and San Fer­nan­do, pro­vid­ing ser­vice to com­muters trav­el­ling be­tween the two ma­jor com­mer­cial cen­tres.