Mayor Bradley Discusses Coney Drive Roundabout

On September eighth Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley and his team will reach the halfway point in their three year term. For residents of the Old Capital that eighteen months has been characterized by unprecedented infrastructural development. And that development has been matched only by unprecedented traffic congestion, inconvenience and frustration. Still, there has been much work and the Mayor is proud of it. He was a guest on Open Your Eyes this morning and spoke about some of his big projects and big ideas for the future. One of those projects is literally feet from our front door here on Coney Drive. We’re talking about the Coney Drive roundabout which, like it or not, has alleviated most of the traffic congestion at that junction.

Darrel Bradley, Belize City Mayor

Darrell Bradley

“The issue with this particular roundabout because of the medians and how it’s laid out is a design that we want to duplicate in other areas…and this is part of the whole renovation of Coney Drive. And that roundabout isn’t finished because we’re going to put reflectors because we want to ensure that at night the roundabout itself is safe. I’ve noticed and we have looked at it at night in terms of the quality of the lighting around the area. The statue in there will be lit up so that the people can see the roundabout at night and the medians. But again in terms of the area we have not really commenced that, but that’s something that we are looking at in terms of educating people on how to actually use the roundabout. And it’s not only this particular one, but all the roundabouts in the city because one of the policies that we have implemented is that we’re looking at more roundabouts as opposed to traffic lights because traffic lights tend to cause a problem because of maintenance and the expense. And traffic lights work when you have a traffic system in place…lights at different streets. We tend to just have one light here and it doesn’t regulate the traffic system. Roundabouts do a much better job.”