Imagine your city or town without traffic lights. Imagine walking or driving at night without street or roadway lights. Then think about what you would do and how you would feel if this wasn’t just a temporary outage and it went on for months, and months and months.
Those of us on the U.S. mainland have allowed seven months to pass by while our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico have gone without full power since September of 2017. I often wonder... what would each of us do if faced with the same situation?
Since last September, I have attempted to familiarize readers with Puerto Rican history, culture and politics, to forge a connection and enhance both understanding, empathy and hopefully prod people to take action. Since Maria I’ve written about health and environmental issues, suicide rates, housing, food, potable water, school closings, U.S. government disaster response failures—the gamut of obstacles that are part of everyday life on the island, while not ignoring the incredible resilience of the Puerto Rican people, who are attempting to cope one day at a time.
I have been thinking for some time about a simple fact of daily life in post-Maria Puerto Rico, that perhaps—if people take a few minutes to think about—might make you understand what daily life is like there.
We live in a car driven world. Those of us who don’t own a car, or drive a car are often passengers in cabs, and on buses. Getting from point A to point B in a city or town requires streets and roadways and they have traffic lights. Even when you don’t have a car or aren’t in one, traffic lights help you do something very simple—crossing the street. So pedestrians are part of this picture too.
Imagine, just imagine living in the chaos of non-working stop lights. Not just a “temporary” outage where the damn light is blinking or not working at all and causes temporary traffic snarls until fixed in a day or two. We have all experienced traffic jams, we know the environmental impact, and we have the term “road rage” in our lexicon.
Before the hurricane Puerto Rico already had traffic problems. The term, tapón, is part of the vernacular on the island, as the author of this blog post on island slang points out in his translation of an Associated Press (AP) article:
Puerto Ricans, especially those who travel through the metropolitan area, know really well what the word "tapón" means in Boricua slang.
This is due to that, with 150 autos per pavemented mile, Puerto Rico is the country with the highest density of vehicles per squared mile in the world, according to the Department of Transportation and Public Repairs (DTOP).
In the metropolitan zone there are nearly 4,300 cars per square mile, also the highest proportion at the global level.
Though there are no stoplights on the freeways, at the end of each exit ramp there is one, and they are not working, causing backups so bad that many Puerto Ricans who commute to work now leave their homes three hours early in hopes to avoid tapónes. Those caught in the snarls sit, honk their horns, and fume as a shimmering haze of exhaust fumes glitters in the air. Rage ensues, and tempers fray in a populace already overwhelmed by all the other ills that beset an island essentially abandoned by the Republican/Trump regime in Washington, D.C and the major mainstream media.
One of the first things that friends on the island talked about to me right after Maria hit was the stoplight and streetlight situation—yet there have been almost no news reports about it here. Driving has become a situation where you take your life in your hands, and pray that you will make it to your destination alive, without having an accident. This Florida local television report was the most recent one I could find.
If you think the morning drive is bad in Florida, drivers in Puerto Rico are dealing with far worse conditions several months after Hurrican Maria.
- Intersections very dangerous as traffic lights remain out
- Drivers honking horns, forcing their way through
[...]
Traffic lights were out at almost every intersection we went through from San Juan to Ponce and Coamo to Guayama.
The driver of one yellow semi honked and hit the gas, forcing his way through an ocean of vehicles. It's not just the semis and delivery trucks, but everyone else is doing it, too.
It's a two-part problem: Lights aren't working, and some are hanging by a thread.
Imagine having to deal with it as a tourist, but also how stressful and dangerous it is for locals in Puerto Rico. They just hope to arrive alive after taking their to kids to school and getting to work.
On a trip home to the island, at the end of March, USA Today’s Josh Rivera wrote:
In the week I was home in Puerto Rico, I almost got into four car accidents because streetlights and traffic lights weren't working. When you can’t even guarantee the safety of people just trying to get home from work, statistics showing “how well we’re doing” don’t paint an accurate picture of life on the island.
Back in January Caribbean Business reported only half of Puerto Rico’s traffic lights work:
SAN JUAN – While more than 100 days have passed since Hurricane Maria left a path of destruction across Puerto Rico, traveling by car still leaves many drivers breathless as they maneuver through the many intersections left with damaged traffic lights.
With a lack of traffic lights at intersections and the risk this situation entails, the island still has a ways to go before parts arrive to repair and restore the island’s power system.
The secretary of Transportation & Public Works, Carlos Contreras, said Thursday that some 615 traffic intersections are already working, but that figure is only half of the 1,200 around the island.
There are about 220 “functional” traffic lights, but they have to be powered up by the Electric Power Authority before they are operational, according to a written statement.
“Although we have had to [write up] purchase orders for materials from the United States, because there are parts that are not available in Puerto Rico, as these materials arrive, we have made progress with other repairs. However, there are cases of intersections with traffic lights that have already been repaired, but depend on other factors to make them work,” the secretary added.
Ahh yes, “functional.” Three months have passed since Contreras held this presser yet, according to people I’ve spoken with on the island many of the stop lights that work in the morning, are out in the afternoon, or evening.
The lack of lighting on the highways is also a real danger. Fly into San Juan, leave the airport, and you are faced with pitch black roadways. Head into neighborhoods which may have PREPA or generator power (when not undergoing frequent mini-blackouts and shutdowns) however the darkened streets make many older people afraid to leave their homes.
Right after Maria hit this was the only major story I saw about the traffic lights:
You will see the National Guard attempting to direct traffic. They are long gone. Puerto Rico does not have traffic police—when an accident occurs, regular cops have to show up in a squad car. Back in December—the city of Orlando sent twelve cops to help out.
That was a great gesture—though in no way solving the problem.
Some thoughts:
I spend a lot of time pondering the question of why we can’t seem to garner massive support here, for our folks on the island. Perhaps people don’t give a damn because they don’t view Puerto Ricans as Americans? Perhaps many mainlanders assume (wrongly) that Puerto Ricans don’t pay U.S. taxes so why should they get government aid?
Perhaps they view Puerto Ricans as “criminal others” given that most Puerto Ricans speak Spanish, and Donald Trump has portrayed Latinos/Hispanics as drug-dealers, gang members and rapists. Perhaps it is racism plus xenophobia since Puerto Ricans are thought of as not-white, even though many are.
Perhaps because the U.S. national media has dropped the ball on paying daily attention to conditions in Puerto Rico and only public broadcasting and blogs do serious coverage. Perhaps, because many news stories that make headlines in Puerto Rico are in Spanish, and mainland news services don’t translate and disseminate them—island news stays in a bubble of local consumption.
(I just saw this happen with the Puerto Rican National Strike on May Day. Zero major media coverage here in advance, and the U.S media only bothered to cover the end of the marches—when marchers were tear gassed. Much of that coverage was filtered through an anti-protest, pro-police action lens.)
And perhaps it is simply that Trump and Trumpism and celebrity hijinks have sucked up all the TV airtime … while the average person on the mainland attempts to just make it through another day.
I have no answers.
A solution to the traffic light and street light situation exists. I know that the British Virgin Islands and other parts of the Caribbean have installed, and are installing solar powered traffic and roadway lights. This could be an answer for the current situation in Puerto Rico, however answers and solutions cost money—and given the intransigence of the Fiscal Control Board and austerity measures supported by the current governor—doubtful any long-term solutions will take place any time soon. Only a massive demand from those of us here on the mainland and a change of our government will turn moral support into an economic reality.
Currently, most of the political will to do something comes from politicians who live in areas with large mainland Puerto Rican populations. To date the elected official who has provided the most ongoing aid to Puerto Rico is New York’s Governor Mario Cuomo, who arrived in PR and the USVI before Trump and keeps going back and sending more help. The most influential public figure who has been working delivering hands-on aid has been former President Bill Clinton via his role with the Clinton Foundation.
Yes, other politicians—mostly Democrats—have spoken up, held press conferences and taken steps to help Puerto Ricans who fled the island and landed in their districts, like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, but their efforts cannot be translated into national and administrative policy as long as Republicans hold the reins of power. I have to admit I wonder that if and when Democrats are back in the driver’s seat if Puerto Rico will be anywhere near the top of our national agenda.
Back to traffic and stop lights: I grew up in New York City, where there were always news articles about angry residents demanding traffic lights at busy intersections, usually after a pedestrian death. I’m curious. How long would you put up with no working traffic lights and streetlights in your city? What you would do to get the situation fixed?
I think if Atlanta, or Detroit, or Los Angeles or Boston or Houston or New York City went without traffic lights for more than a month there would be riots in the streets.
But for Puerto Rico we only get *crickets.*