St. Maarten Private Eye

I would suggest doing an in-depth story about the natural springs in St. Maarten. If you are not aware, you should be. Case in point: St. Peters. People often talk about the road always full of septic water. Nonsene. St. Peters and other areas of St. Maarten are filled with natural springs. Most of the time the water you see is from springs. Nature reclaiming the natural water way before we came along and built over these water ways. It's too long to go indepth here and I don't have all of the info, but I do know about our springs in St. Petes and other areas. I remember Sarah trying to explain this on radio once but nobosy seemed to get it. But it's true.

Natural springs are on SXM for sure, but they cannot be blamed all the time for the poor roads. WR and KOOP should take these springs into consideration when they are building the roads.
These companies have engineers and they know pretty well how to deal with natural springs.
Cole bay in front of AFOO EXTRA has a natural spring, no matter how often they pacth that road , it opens up into a cavernous fishing hole. Other areas of Cole Bay has the same problem but the fact remains that the roads are poorly built, sewage is running in almost every neighborhood, there are too many vehicules using SXM roads, including heavy equipment all hours of the day, so instead of looking for the scapegoat natural springs, can we please look at the bigger pciture here?
Is SXM catering to a heavily over populated island? what is the carrying capacity of the buildings? carrying capacity of the islands roads? carrying capacity of the ponds and lagoon?
The carrying capacity study has never been revealed to the public and the Island Council has never discussed this study, I even doubt if the opposition Island council members have seen it.
I am amazed that people still keep finding every excuse in the book to avoid holding their government officials accountable. maybe if they had proof how much money is being passed to Commissioners for every road built, every project realised they would see that government officials operate as a bussiness themselves for themselves.

Susy has small but significant points which would help.
There isnt too much traffic in sxm its all about traffic flow.
Improve traffic flow and the problems {traffic) moves with it.

My suggestions.

1. Improve the road quality. That doesnt mean to say we have to insist on brand new roads everywhere. The minimum and full time employ of a part of those responsible for roads should be emergency repair, of yes, potholes. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever that can be given not to do this.

2. Police the roads !!!!!! Un roadworthy vehicles, untaxed, un licensed, drunk drivers are an obvious and daily sight on the roads, and nothing. No control at all. Shame on the traffic police , if they exist at all. And dont go out stopping the tourists and easy targets. Get real about policing.

3. Control the taxis, buses who blatently stop wherever they like to pick up. This interupts the flow. 30 seconds picking up can translate in 3 or 4 minutes half a mile away and so on. Its exponential.

4. Diggers heavy equipment, boats containers. Should move in the early hours
or after 7pm.

5. Put the parking at the airport the right way around duhhhh

6. Stop putting lumps in the roads, commonly known as sleeping policemen !! quite apt really !!

7. build a bridge across the lagoon

8. Stop allowing buildings without adequate parking. Almost opposite the gas station in Simpson Bay is a new 4 story building, with 6 to 8 parking spaces. Nuts.

The smartest move on parking is on the pond fill where there is an entry and an exit. perfect. Stop this parking immediately in front of every buisness

So so simple even if we do have to use our legs a little more

Its not hard. It is acceptable to do these minimums elsewhere in the world

Personally, I will write another letter next week to the papers if nothing has been done about the issues of the pot holes in the Simpsonbay Corner/Colebay area which I truly believe are a huge contributor to the traffic jams.
I noticed that the hole at Pineapple Pete's has been covered up but just with concrete - doesn't look like it will last through one more heavy rain fall.
Please everyone, take pictures of the traffic jams, write to the papers, and bring this to our commissioners' attention. Maybe they do not have to drive through Simpsonbay and are not aware of the problem.
Ha! Sure!
My point is, let's really make this an issue in the EXCO's face.

Y'all can talk and write till you're blue in the face, fact is all that will happen is patch work. Gov will not carry out major road work now with the season comin up. Simple as that. Letters won'tmove them. Deal with the patches cause that's it for now.

We pay road tax for what exactly? I would just love it if ever tourist writes a letter to the tourist office to complain about the state of the roads, that will move governments ass I guess right?
They don't listen to residents and the direct road tax payers but they will listen to tourists who are having their vacation spoilt by fixing flat tires and sitting in long lines of traffic.
Or maybe come January every resident of SXM should just refuse to pay the road tax untill the roads and potholes are fixed.
Sure we will all get fines, we should all go to court and ask the judge to deal with this issue as a one large courtcase, road tax payers against government who do not live up to it's obligation.

Too bad that I already paid! We can't afford to sit around until the new plates come out. This afternoon on my way home, the traffic ran from Colebay to the airport at 5:30pm. How many people is that wasting away in a damn car? Hundreds?
My point is, this has to be fixed now.
Forget about the bridge across the lagoon - that is a long term project - we need action NOW! In two months, it will be twice as bad with high season. Let's not even think about Heineken Regatta!!!
Someone please help me with suggestions - I am tired and have no new ideas this late at night....

If no one says anything and sits in their cars day in and day out, cursing and steaming to no one in particular, then how does that help?
We know that no major road work can be done now, but at least fix the trouble areas.
Making the Simpsonbay Corner back road a One Way does not require any investment besides a sign. Works in Simpsonbay, most of the time.
Patching the road at Peking Supermarket would be just fine by me.
ANYTHING is better than nothing.
Are you happy with sitting in a car for hours to get a few miles? If so, fine, you obviously have no life.
I personally have a lot to do.
So, I WILL keep bringing this subject up.
Thank God there are intelligent people out there who don't sit back and wait for someone else to complain about something.

You are so right SAM. The squeaky wheel normally gets the oil, but then again I feel that people are frightened to speak out in fear of retaliation. Regretably, Freedom of Speech is feared by many in Sint Maarten.

Wake up people of Sxm!!