Mayor Wagner: Vernon Street Traffic Lights Coming Back Soon

For the past few weeks, the traffic lights at the Vernon Street intersection have been out of commission. According to Belize City Mayor Bernard Wagner, the situation arose when a dollar van crashed into the base of the lights and damaged the apparatus. On Wednesday, a woman claimed on Facebook that she was almost knocked down by one of several vehicles that sped across the intersection as she was making her way from one side of the street to the other. Today, the mayor explained to News Five that when drivers are reckless and damage public property, it comes at a cost to not only the Belize City Council, but also to other citizens who could be caught in those incidents.

Bernard Wagner

Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City

“Dollar vans run into the light, broke up the light. Da wa light weh run by the, administered by the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, but that at the end of the day, ih deh eena our city. We know da wa area weh have a lot of hazard, safety, so we have that on our priority list to get that light up and running at Vernon Street. The one at Freetown I think it’s up and running back, but we just ask again that we motorists, they have to be careful when we put up these type of apparatus in respect to safety of our people, right, because it costs the city. It costs us tremendously. When you, wa dollar van was just run into our light, cause damage. Now it not only cause the damage to the light, now. Ih have costs where people could get injured there, right. All kind of things could happen, soh da nuh only one component. You have to look at all the other component when we as motorists do not exercise care and attention. If our traffic officers are out there and they could document it, that could go through the, through the court system, I think summary jurisdiction, jurisdiction and get charges brought against drivers.”