The City of Port of Spain

Making Port of Spain a Smart and Brighter City

by RWF

Trinidad and Tobago may not be a Silicon Valley nation but we can start by being “smarter” with finding more innovative ways to becoming a smart city by embracing the digital transformation that’s reshaping cities across the world,as for years the city of Port of Spain has been considered the metropolitan capital of the Caribbean.

A direction which perhaps goes beyond the use of smart phone devices,and activation smart plans for accessing social media, but rather it’s the amalgamation of local government, city councils, businesses, institutions and citizens to achieving digital transformation.

Smart cities are changing how they engage with residents, how they design and deliver services and how they create economic opportunities for local businesses in the digital era within cities where modern technology and information, sharing becomes the platform for smart changes, using bright ideas for the advancement of the city.

As such, creating  a smarter policy within Port of Spain can ensure the estimated city population of 36,963 Central Statistics Office  (CSO 2011) would be able to facilitate faster access locations for optimum convenience within a sector of existing,  banking  head quarters, shopping ,business offices and other city services provided would be greater achieved.

Some technologies used within the city limits were identified as having Wi-Fi capability access spots at major hotels which might be free in coffee shops, even the availability for a wider customer base and connectivity, via satellite, Edge, GPRS, DSL along with broad band services in excess of 6 mega bits reported to be utilities provided for smart usage.

Furthermore, the city public transportation is used by everyone congregating and coming into the city, which acts as a nexus for the dense and complex systems of roadway. An area stretching from 8 kilometers (5mi) west of the city, 24 kilometers (15mi) east approximately 10km from the airport, as the city remains located in the Northwest section between the Gulf of Paria Northern range and Caroni Swamp.

As plans for the extension of the water taxi services from Port of Spain to major urban hubs, along the west coast are yet to be done, however, there appears to be a hidden will for completion, as the Port of Spain Water Front shows the brightness of the city.

On the contrary developing the City should not stop at the Waterfront as for  a century ago as the last Spanish Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, Don Jose’ Maria Chacon’ was said to have devoted much of his time developing the Capital (1757) as reflected by municipal infrastructure done in the past.

Chacon expanded the residential boundaries of the city, and built the East Dry driver to contain city flooding, an effort that links with the recent generations of former Mayors of Port of Spain to present management operation systems are functioning to date.

Subsequently Port of Spain became a “city” in 1914 ordinance was passed on May 29 and was proclaimed by the Governor on June 25, 1914.

Former Mayor Louis Lee Sing (2010-2013) remembers when the City was inviting, pleasant, friendly, clean and safe. Before Hyatt, Nicholas Towers what they had growing up in Port of Spain was Frederick Street, which provided these amenities and embodied a welcoming atmosphere within and coming into the city.

He said now it’s “congested, not safe, not clean, vendors are selling on the streets and its being overrun by street dwellers” that of which are made up of 70% comprising of drug addicts, deportees, mental ill patience’s determined from a past Port of Spain exercise conducted during his stewardship (2010, 2013).

Along with an initiative for smart parking, which would have allowed commuters to park their vehicles outer city limits and transported within the city.

Lee Sing believes however, that a revolution of change is needed for the City of Port of Spain to become a smart city, which begins with people putting each other first. An act he said seldom occurs within T&T culture to how a society interfaces people will determine the technological advancement of the city.

Whereas, the Down Town Merchants Owners Association (DOMA) Gregory Aboud suggests that Free Wi-Fi within the city, along the streets by using up –to 15 minutes of network connectivity time at various periods, during routine and daily activity would be a plus for commuters.

On the other hand smart city parking initiatives once implemented can be taken to engage businesses and commuters and the delivery of services, he also believes the city has the potential for acquiring any city status towards developing Port of Spain.

However, before taking a smart city outlook, he preferred to focus on the present day city for discussing this subject .He refutes claims that business owners within the city are greedy, but believes they share an equal obligation for the development of the city.    

He also noted that other important factors are hindering the city business, delivery and services. An if not address the city can be lost, as policy decisions keeps hurting the social dealings within the city, as a result badly affecting commerce .More so,saying the hostile takeover of wreckers are determinants against sustaining the life of the city as well.

Linking how the city infrastructure from the East Dry River, parks and streets may have served, as a brilliant function and stands as a perfect representation of worked done post colonial era. Now he believes the city needs new infrastructure and immediate drainage for flood prevention.

Along with traffic management, more signage which would lead to improved parking systems. Allowing law and order to prevail, facilitating a shop and park with more receptacles may impact cleaner streets as well.

Other views raised outside the city localities of port of Spain, Gonzales and environs were expressed by citizens living within eastern communities of Tunapuna and Arouca found the city to be not the same as before compared to their previous visits into the city saying its dirty and felt more like a bigger expansion of city gate described as a rundown transport hub further depicting the city as dull in stature.

Further attempts were also made to contact former Mayor Ethelbert Telly Paul (1994-1996) and The Trinidad and Tobago Chamber Industry and Commerce President Katherine Kumar on their views for Smart City governance and the City of Port of Spain were left unanswered.

Jason RF Lalla a city engineer attached to the Port of Spain City Corporation. He manages and coordinates functions of the city engineer’s department which is the executing arm, such duties includes building inspections, overseeing new and old developments adhere to the town and country planning regulations.

It also ranges from dealing with complaints, sanitation exercises done periodically, and keeping the general infrastructure of the city working and some cases, he sometimes acts as a liaison for the disaster response management unit.

Lalla indicates that the operating systems of the city for making services more interactive to commuters on a daily basis whether through Wi-Fi medium or information hot spots availability is an objective to be done by a transformation of the recurrent maintenance of the city, using a developmental sustainable plan with international companies such as the International Development Bank (IDB) who conducted a recent study of the city (2013) would be the kind of partnership needed for smart city status.

While, he believes in a global vision for a green city, which adapts most of its energy from sunlight. Making the city energy efficient and hints to the city corporation building once mandated would be the first green building, unplug from using electricity. As free energy from the sun light, 365 days from open roof space, less dependency on electricity and recycling concrete from demolish building he considers smarter.

From an Engineering stand point “Government should move away from spread” Lalla said the government previously would have constructed Sky scrapers such as the Hyatt Waterfront. As compared to building across, which takes up space for additional accommodations, and further suggest a familiar sentiment made in the past for government agencies to be located within one central area in Port of Spain.

Present Mayor Raymond Tim Kee (2015) also remembers when the city was a place where nuclear family by extension all type of families would have walked the streets of Port of Spain window shopping within a safe and clean city. More so visits to the memorial park formed part of the city’s nostalgia as sound of rimes kept you clean cleanness in the form nursery rimes bit of paper lying on the floor gave a purpose of self.

Facing similar or even identical city problems like previous Mayor Lee Sing, relating to the influx of street dwellers comprising of deportees, drug addicts and congested streets which can only be described as work in progress for his administration.

He also compared his style of governance to getting things done in a soft spoken manner, but sturdy and not being too serious with issues that requires more temperance saying getting the buildings guttered refurbish even naming the first floor of the City Hall building after former Mayor Stevenson Sarjeant served (1983-1987) and the building Auditorium, after the longest serving Mayor Murchison Brown (2006-2010).

He further explained how the terminology of smart parking is truly an act of implementing meters without towers, as bar-codes and laser guns would be used for assessing how long cars are parked at designated parking areas within the city. 

There is fusion within the city when it comes to ingenuity and keeping up with the novelty of technological advancement Mayor Tim kee suspects’ that smart city governance is a reality as the first stage would be “the acceptance of the fact that what we have is not good enough, lets accept the truths and then you proceed to see what is the response, we can’t get away from technology” saying let’s signal to the world a clean city is a reflection of our home.

To sum up just imagine the best and most successful global cities are becoming data-and-tech –driven and combine smart governance with smart technologies to how they design, deliver services towards creating economic opportunities for local business in the digital era.

Such a technology narrows the journey for T&T having a public sector becoming digitally smart and creating new business for the tech sector,within the city which may very well exposed the nation to a much more realistic view of being smart city ready rather than solely the use of social media and android apps  features .

Stay Tuned...