The problem of relieving the traffic in and around Port-Louis is coming back to the surface. This repetitive attitude to a major problem is to be deplored because no real effort has been made to find a long-term solution. Many suggestions have been made and ignored; rightly because any benefit acquired should be palliative, because sooner or later we shall be back to square one.

The métro léger, though exonerative and maybe unprofitable, has been favoured in some quarters and will probably be adopted as the only solution. It is tempting to embark on such a prestigious project but unless planned correctly, it will become a white elephant. It is possible that the ideal track from Curepipe to Port-Louis has been identified, but is it enough to find the right track? To encourage people to commute from say, Curepipe to Port-Louis and back, it is imperative to provide at every metro station the adequate and secured parking spaces for a number of motor vehicles to be determined by other studies.

An alternative suggestion has been the ?bus lane?. Aren?t we going to shift the bottleneck from one lane to the other? We can also use flyovers to create a fluidity of the traffic... There are many ways to alleviate the traffic into Port-Louis from various parts of the island. But thus, is there the possibility of expanding Port-Louis ? Obviously not.

I am not an expert but just a layman trying to contribute to find a durable solution to the problem. I feel it is high time that we seriously think of creating an Administrative Capital somewhere in the region of Ebène or Moka. We may thus leave Port-Louis as a Business Capital. Many countries have opted for this solution and it has paid. But here, we are beating about the bush. The advantages of this suggestion are multifold.

It is aberrant that one has forcibly to go to Port-Louis for an identity card, which still cannot be used to attend a hospital or even during an election. If this suggestion does not appear to be viable, then I would like to know the reason from experts in the matter. If the reason is ?vested interest? for example, who is going to rent all the office spaces created through all these skyscrapers coming up as mushrooms in Port-Louis, then the mauritian public is ?doomed? to bear the consequences.

Then, instead of relieving congestion in Port-Louis, we will have to start by relieving congestion in our mental hospitals to accommodate patients suffering from the new disease : the traffic depression!

Dr Hassen MUSTUN