Belize City Council Inaugurates 2 New Stoplights in the Old Capital

The flow of traffic will be better controlled along Central American Boulevard and Chetumal Boulevard.  This morning, the Belize City Council inaugurated two sets of state-of-art traffic lights in the area, which Mayor Bernard Wagner says is in keeping with a campaign commitment to keep Belize City residents safe in heavily trafficked thoroughfares. Here is News Five’s Duane Moody with a report.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Two sets of traffic lights were inaugurated in Belize City today; at the intersection of Chetumal Boulevard and Albert Hoy Avenue and at Central American Boulevard and Fabers Road. Both are highly trafficked thoroughfares – by motorists and pedestrians – and the traffic lights have been installed for various reasons, including safety.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Area Representative, Freetown

“We are here today to inaugurate traffic lights, but what is most important is what traffic lights represent and what they represent is development. That is what traffic lights represent. So when you see a municipal body or a government installing traffic lights in a community, it is because there is a recognition that that community is growing; that that community is flourishing; that that community needs the support of those traffic lights to properly and effectively manage the flow of traffic in that community.”

The initiative is part of a programme that the current city council put in place when it took office back in 2018; last December, the council installed a similar traffic light at the corner of Central American Boulevard and Neal’s Penn Road.

Bernard Wagner

Bernard Wagner, Belize City Mayor

“Dah wah continuation of the programme that we spoke about last December when we did the Penn Road/Central American junction. We spoke about building a network, about building smart cities and trying to optimise safety not only from a perspective of vehicular traffic, but more pedestrian safety. That is very important for us at City Hall where these intersection most of the time create a bottleneck, sometimes it is very unsafe for our children attending school, the elderly. We just can’t continue along that same path, where we only deal with the vehicular traffic. But we had to build in a component where the lights also speak to pedestrians as well.”

Allan Pollard

Allan Pollard, Councillor with Responsibility for Traffic Department

“These new traffic lights do not only increase the value of our city, but they reduce the threat of danger to our drivers and pedestrians, while providing ease of access in some of the most trafficable hotspots in our city. We have been listening to the people cry out for these improvements for years and in less than one full term, we have come behind to deliver for this city.”

The light, including installation, is valued at over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per location and the contractor is K and M Construction from Cayo District which also has the wherewithal for maintenance. According to Mayor Bernard Wagner it took some time, due to COVID-19 to garner the funds.

Bernard Wagner

“We are driven by data, we are driven by studying the traffic flow, studying how many people are in this zone. And this area has clearly become one of the key thoroughfares into the city. People accessing south side and coming off the northern highway would normally take this junction. Fabers Road you know is its own beast by itself. A lot of children access that area there; the Mohammed School, the Excelsior High School, Saint John Vianney. And that area there is a very wide area; if you notice that is the widest part of that boulevard and for pedestrians to cross from one side to the next, it poses a major safety risk and so we along with the councillor identified those three areas. We do have several other areas that we have identified and we will continue this programme.”

Duane Moody for News Five.