Street vending generally takes place in two areas of Port of Spain: Charlotte Street and George Street. Charlotte Street is clogged with vendors for as far as the eye could see. George Street however only utilizes one side of the street mainly. These to streets are in the main urban centre, Port of Spain, which is also the Central Business District (CBD). Cutting through Charlotte Street, is Duke Street, an important street as it has several important business buildings and namely the Ministry of Labour and Micro-enterprise office.
The picture above displays perfectly how a street vendor could cause congestion. First of all this particular street vendor has set up their business on a street corner. Traffic easily happens as some vendors stalls extend more into the path of the cars than they should. The one in the above picture more than extends onto the road and the path of oncoming vehicles.
These two streets despite being lined with vendors are major roads in the capital. There is also jay walking that is particularly famous in Trinidad. When pedestrians/ consumers are finished buying their produce they haphazardly step off into the road to walk to the stalls on the next side of the road or get to the pavement and cars would usually have to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting anyone.
It is understandable that street vendors have not been given any space to vend. The nature of street vending always seems to be in conflict (Voltolini, 2006).
This can be seen in the Guardian newspaper
"The vendors have been asking Coudray to “have a heart” like her Port-of-Spain counterpart Louis Lee Sing, who reconsidered his no-vending position and allowed the Charlotte Street vendors to sell on the streets."
Sometimes as the old saying goes when you give someone an inch they will take a yard. When this happens cars are restricted to, two, tiny, two lane access where they have to carefully navigate. To do so they drive slowly down or up the lanes to avoid bumping into street vendor stalls, carts or crossing pedestrians as can be seen from this link. This causes a pile up of cars especially in the early hours of the morning around 10 o'clock or earlier. The traffic pile ups in these areas take long to subside and people would wait long hours in their cars just moving inch by inch as they slowly make their way through the sea of street vendors and pediatricians.
There are several effects of the congestion formed from street vendors:
- Aside from vehicular congestion there is pedestrian congestion
- traffic accidents
- an increase in vehicle produced air pollution
- impede the flow of ambulance, police, fire and other emergency vehicles
- crowed sidewalks
References
Connelly, Corey. "The sorry plight of Charlotte Street vendors." Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, December 19, 2010. http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,132732.html.
Singh, Sandra. "Vendors blame vendors." Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, April 2, 2008. http://www.newsday.co.tt/business/0,76109.html.
Voltolini, Patricia. Street Vending and the Use of Public Spaces in New York City. 2006. Accessed March 20, 2014. http://books.google.tt/books?id=FiS20Hgpqj8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=street+vending+and+congestion&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JiNHU-aqN-a22AXdk4HoAg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=street%20vending%20and%20congestion&f=false
2 comments:
I like this picture because it displays the sense of community that could develop between street vendors. To be that is one of the most inspirational things with regard to street vending, the close knit community that could possibly develop. Now street vending also falls into a good deal of my blog topic the informal sector but that is just what we are able to see.
Love the picture as ananda said. It truly illustrates what urban side street vending is all about. It demonstrates one of the negative aspects of side street culture. I do agree with the fact that some vendors set up shop on the streets invading the road vicinity where cars are supposed to pass. It is also evident that this thus leads to traffic congestion which occurs in all city centers especially in commercial zones. As a result, i myself in the urban center of Arima also has to sit in the cars for hours waiting to navigate the city. This is evident in commercial zone side street vending and like i made reference to in my blog, the authorities in Trinidad have released this and in many cases has banned this type of commerce from the city center or placed them in certain areas.
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