Barbados is initiating a comprehensive national dialogue to confront its escalating traffic congestion crisis, with Prime Minister Mia Mottley declaring the current rate of vehicle growth “unsustainable” for the island nation. The announcement came during Monday’s ceremony renaming the St Patrick’s roundabout in honor of former Christ Church East MP Sir Richard Cheltenham, where the continuous flow of traffic throughout the event served as a stark demonstration of the problem’s urgency.
Prime Minister Mottley revealed startling statistics showing Barbados’s vehicle population has surged from approximately 40,000 fifty years ago to about 180,000 today—a transformation she described as dramatically changing the country’s landscape. “I don’t think a single minute has passed without traffic approaching the roundabout,” Mottley observed during the ceremony, using the moment to highlight the critical need for intervention.
The upcoming consultations will create platforms for citizens from all backgrounds to contribute to developing long-term solutions as Barbados grapples with its overburdened road network. Mottley emphasized that while infrastructure improvements like road widening and overpasses will form part of the strategy, the challenge requires more fundamental changes to how Barbadian society and economy are structured.
Central to this discussion will be reimagining public transportation, which the Prime Minister stated “cannot be a luxury, but must be a basic right if this country is to function efficiently.” The government’s approach recognizes that physical expansion alone cannot solve the congestion problem and that broader systemic changes are necessary for sustainable transportation solutions.