JANUARY - MARCH 2022 / ISSUE 09
Making Honiara Greater Again
Review of the second consultation on the Greater Honiara Transport Master Plan Study (GHTMS)
Summary figure of the GHTMS. (Source: GHTMS)
DAVID SPRING PT COLUMNIST Sydney, Australia
E
ven a brief visit to Honiara will provide an experience of the debilitating traffic congestion faced by residents on most days. It could be slow traffic through a section of potholes. The right turn lane into Point Cruz could be backed up and blocking through lanes. Trucks unloading bags of SolRice could be impeding traffic flow. Everyone has a theory. What’s not just theoretical is that the co-location of the Central Market and the city’s main bus stop on Mendana Avenue is a significant and common generator of queuing and acute delays. On an ordinary day, this dynamic has
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knock-on effects to the traffic to the outskirts of the central business district. When the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) signed an agreement with the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) in 2019 to conduct a major study of transportation across greater Honiara, no doubt solving these seemingly intractable problems was on their minds. The Greater Honiara Transport Master Study (GHTMS) was billed as a detailed study, “to review the current road network, minibus system and traffic management including city and area development plans, national transport plan and other related strategies.” Has it delivered? Public Consultation With an unfortunate year-long delay due to COVID-19, the study’s findings and recommendations were only recently presented at the second consultation in Honiara, 22 February 2022. The hybrid in-person/online consultation was well attended by government ministries, industry and business leaders, foreign aid donors and project
