National Mobility, National Effort: MP Roseburg says all contributions will inform mobility plan

GREAT BAY--Member of Parliament Sjamira Roseburg is calling for an open, coordinated, and thoughtful national approach to traffic relief, stressing that the island’s worsening congestion is a moment that requires every useful contribution, even small ones, to inform the development of a national plan.

In an invited comment to The Peoples’ Tribune, Roseburg said St. Maarten has the advantage of elected officials with varied professional backgrounds and expertise, and that those skills should be brought into one coordinated, informed approach. That process, she suggested, should include deliberate consultation among MPs, and could possibly be advanced within the framework of the VROMI committee of Parliament so that proposals are discussed together rather than separately.

“This is not my technical field, but it is still my duty," she said, while rejecting the idea that only experts should speak to the issue. In her view, recognizing the urgency of a national problem is part of what voters send MPs to do, and influencing solutions can take many forms, including raising options, sharing community feedback, and ensuring decision-makers do not ignore what people experience daily. She pointed to her colleague MPs Veronica Jansen-Webster, Christopher Wever and Darryl York as example of MPs with valuable knowledge to offer and others who have also contributed.

Backing a national mobility push

She complimented Minister of VROMI Patrice Gumbs and UNOPS for signing the agreement, which expresses a shared intention to collaborate on the development of a national mobility improvement program.

According to the framework described, the Letter of Intent is meant to support technical cooperation aimed at improving mobility, traffic management, and road safety across the country. The proposed technical assistance would support VROMI and partner ministries, including TEATT and Justice, in developing an implementation roadmap, assessing traffic flows and congestion points, evaluating road safety risks, and identifying both priority short-term actions and longer-term solutions to strengthen mobility in St. Maarten.

For Roseburg, that direction matters because it signals that mobility is being treated as a coordinated national issue that touches infrastructure, public safety, and economic activity, not as a set of disconnected complaints. She positioned the Letter of Intent as the kind of structured step that can translate discussion into action, provided the process stays open, consultative, and focused.

"Recognizing the urgency of a problem does not mean avoiding it. My views are based on research, community input, and looking at how other small islands manage similar challenges. Specialists must conduct the technical studies, but the problem itself affects us all on a daily basis.”

She described her role as one of responsibility and initiative, even when the subject sits outside her professional training. People elected her, she said, to help affect and influence change, and the first step in that influence is to put ideas on the table that can be tested, refined, and either adopted or discarded based on evidence.

She stressed that contributions from MPs and the public can still have value in a developing plan, particularly when they reflect lived experience on the roads, patterns of congestion, and the kinds of friction points that repeated daily delays reveal. For Roseburg, sharing ideas is not about pretending to replace specialists, it is about ensuring the planning process starts with a broad base of input and does not miss obvious issues that residents face.

A daily problem that has become structural

Roseburg’s comments also underline the scale of the problem. She said traffic congestion has made movement across the island increasingly unreliable, affecting work, school, productivity, and overall quality of life. She added that the pressure intensifies during high season, when visitor numbers and vehicle volume rise on a road network that already struggles under ordinary conditions.

“As an island, there are natural limits to how much we can expand,” she explained. “We simply have too many vehicles for the space we have, which means we must start making smarter and sometimes more difficult choices.”

That perspective, she said, requires St. Maarten to move beyond short bursts of enforcement or one-off repairs and toward a structured mobility strategy that includes public transport, traffic management, school traffic planning, and alternative movement options. In her view, the island’s constraints make planning more urgent, not less.

Public transport and hard choices

Roseburg identified the lack of a reliable, structured public transportation system as a major driver of heavy private vehicle reliance. Without predictable schedules, organization, and alignment with daily routines, she argued, residents will continue to depend on their own cars.

“Without predictable schedules and proper organization, people will continue to depend on their own cars,” she said.

Rather than presenting a fixed prescription, Roseburg framed several options she believes must be evaluated through proper studies, with specialists assessing feasibility, costs, impacts, and timelines. Her list included:

• Improving public transportation so it is more reliable, structured, and aligned with peak work and school hours

• Using larger-capacity public transport vehicles to reduce the number of vehicles on the road

• Exploring peak-hour or temporary one-way traffic systems to improve flow

• Improving organization around school drop-off and pick-up through designated zones, staggered times, or structured school transport systems

• Reassessing water-based transportation options, such as water taxis between Simpson Bay and Philipsburg

• Making the old Cake House Road broader and converting it into a two-way road

Roseburg said the point is not to announce decisions before the evidence exists, but to ensure the right questions are being asked and the right studies are being done.

“I am saying these options (if not done yet) must be studied properly. Once studies are done, decisions have to be made, even when they are not easy,” she said.

She acknowledged that evidence-based policymaking can lead to unpopular choices, but argued that leadership requires acting on what works, rather than delaying because solutions may be inconvenient.

Consultation

Running through Roseburg’s position is the belief that St. Maarten’s traffic crisis demands more coordination between political leadership, technical planners, and the public. She emphasized that ideas should not be developed in isolation, and that MPs should consult with each other and speak with each other, not separate from each other.

Her call is for a uniformed approach shaped by open communication, shared planning, and the willingness to gather input early. That, she suggested, is how even the smallest suggestion can end up shaping a future plan, by helping planners identify the right problems, compare options, and prioritize what can realistically be executed.

In closing, Roseburg said congestion is no longer a minor inconvenience, it is a structural issue that requires the island to rethink how it moves people.

“Doing nothing is not an option for a small island like ours,” she said. “We must be willing to rethink how we move people and make informed decisions for the long term benefit of our community.”

She described her comments as her input “for now,” while acknowledging that specialists may already have strong solutions ready. The next step, she said, is to evaluate what can be executed and within what time frame, and to do so through an approach rooted in coordination, evidence, and open communication.

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