Vendors hopes for toll to bring back lost customers

If you're a regular traveller along the Toll Gate main road in Clarendon, the image of a vibrant, bustling street market--complete with street vendors hawking everything from ripe fruit to small vehicle items--was once impossible to ignore. The colourful stalls and the animated calls from the sellers were as much a part of the journey as the road itself.

But these days, the usual vibrant roadside vanished due to a significant decline in traffic as a result of a free-use highway that bypasses the area. Instead of the usual bustling marketplace, only one vendor, Andrew Williams, was found standing alone.

The newly constructed road, which lets commuters bypass several communities like Clarendon Park, Osborne Store, Toll Gate, Scott's Pass, and Porus has drastically changed the dynamic.

"Mi normally have naseberry and other tings, but right now, mi have to ease off and do some construction work. The road get dead bad," Williams explained.

The the 27.5-kilometre four-lane highway, which stretches from May Pen, Clarendon, to Williamsfield, Manchester, has been free to vehicular traffic since it was officially opened September 14, 2023. The National Road Operating and Constructing Company Limited, the entity that has responsibility for the road, is yet to ink a concession agreement with an operator, which would pave the way for the paying of toll to use the roadway. Williams, like many other vendors, has had to pivot since the road was opened.

"Normally ackee sell fast, but today mi only sell about three dozen from morning. Things slow, and the sellers dem probably gone hustle somewhere else first."

He is holding out hope for the day when a toll will be enforced. "Mi hear seh we a guh get back we customers dem soon because as soon as people have to pay fi use the highway dem a guh start drive back here suh. Mi can't sit down so mi just a gwan occupy mi time out here. Mi just a look forward to when the people dem have to start paying the toll because right now it sticky. Not even patty nah sell like one time because the place scanty," he said.