March 30, 2005 – Traffic on Main Street will flow a bit more smoothly and quickly Thursday, if an experiment being conducted by the Police Department works the way it is hoped it will.
In an effort to try something different to break up the constant logjam that is Charlotte Amalie's main thoroughfare, Deputy Police Chief Elvin R. Fahie has announced there will be no parking on the street at all, and there will be no stopping and no picking up or dropping off passengers in the traffic lane. Anyone picking up or dropping off passengers or anything else, must pull over into the parking lane.
"It's a trial," Fahie said Wednesday afternoon, "And if it works we may implement it."
The idea came out of a meeting between the Police Department, the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce and the V.I. Taxi Association, Fahie said. All of the stakeholders have signed on to the idea.
In addition to the parking and stopping restrictions, Fahie said Raadets Gade and Guttets Gade will be used as dispatch areas for licensed taxi operators in the downtown area. Raadets Gade is the street that Crazy Cow was on and Guttets Gade runs from the Waterfront to Main Street adjacent to FirstBankVI.
If someone calls for a taxi they will be dispatched from one of those areas.
Fahie said there are already designated areas along the north side of Main Street – the parking lane – where taxis can pull over and serve passengers, "but they are sometimes reluctant to use them," Fahie said.
Instead, taxi drivers are far more prone to stopping in the middle of the traffic lane to entice passengers to ride "back to the ship" with them. On busy days this practice brings traffic to a near halt throughout the day.
Fahie said the no stopping and parking changes will be one of several coordinated plans that he hopes will ease congestion in the downtown area.