A really dangerous road in Port au Prince. Same old, familiar story

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL May 6, 2014
The typical 'road' in PaP

The typical ‘road’ in PaP. This is NOT the ripped up road runs past our housing complex in Tabarre

I’ve been slow to take photographs of the road that runs past our housing complex in the Port au Prince area known as Tabarre, and no amount of description will probably sum up its horror. And what it says about city administrators and planners here, if you can call the shambles, any form of administration and planning.

In a nutshell, this is what has been done to that road, one of the important ones in the Haitian capital. Someone very wise decided to widen it and pave the sidewalks, which is all to the good.

Someone even wiser (or perhaps it was the first wise man) decided there was no time like the present and it had best be done at one go. So the existing pavements were torn up – all at once – and the road left a thin ribbon with high sides. Now, one car may travel relatively safely but two lanes of traffic may not.

There is no indication when, if ever, the road will be made safe again.

I suppose it’s unfair to use the words “if ever”. All will surely come right in the fullness of time. Just not right now.

Jack Kerouac

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
– Jack Kerouac