The pressure is on for the government to solve the transport situation in Santo Domingo. Drivers now have to crawl along at a speed of 5kph on main expressways resulting in high stress and fuel costs.
Diario Libre has carried a five-part series on transport in Santo Domingo by Hamlet Hermann, the first director of the Metropolitan Transport Authority when it was effective.
The editorial in Diario Libre today, Monday 26 October 2015 tackles the issue:
“The quality of life in Santo Domingo is worse every year. The chaos of transport and traffic, as well as the incapacity to articulate an intelligent and viable urban plan are the causes.
“Let us take the problem of transport that can be analyzed as a symbol of the problems that affect the development of the country.
“Overlapping institutions, which implies that no one has the obligation to resolve the problems, but the ruling party has a gross payroll for its activists. Illegal monopolies are allowed by the powerful politicians for their benefit and clearly against the common interest. Sectorial mafias control what moves and what could move. Deals are made with large public works, but there is negligence in the fulfillment of the laws and maintenance. Lack of planning, consensus, supervision and institutionalism.
“The state of transport in the city is the best indication of how we are living.”