By: Staff Writer
November 7, 2025
Pilot public transport projects in Grenada and St Lucia to bring paradigm shift says a senior sector specialist at the Caribbean Sustainable Infrastructure Conference (CSIC) 2025 being hosted in Barbados this week.
Leighton Waterman, Sustainable Energy Specialist at Caribbean Development Bank, said in his presentation at day two of the CSIC that the public transportation pilot projects in Grenada and St Lucia will move the sector to making it a user centered sector, making it more regulated and modernized.
Waterman also said: “Looking also at the idea of the quality road infrastructure, because it’s okay if you have these nice busses which are moving around the countries. But if the roads are not maintained and well serviced, then that also impacts the same busses, which we’ve paid much for, especially if I’m a private person buying a minibus. I don’t want to have you buying shocks and tires every two or three months. So the development of the Sustainable Public Transportation Pilot Project came directly out of the road map.
“And the idea of this pilot project, we focus on two islands, Grenada and St Lucia. And the principles for that plan, you see again at the center that we’re trying to get a win, win situation for all the key components involved, the operators, especially if they’re private, well, private and public, the passengers who are going to be using the system, but also the administrators, the government administrators who manage the sector.”
He added: “So we’re trying to through this pilot project to bring about a paradigm shift in how we look at public transportation within our countries, moving it from dollars and cents to making it a user centered sector, making it more regulated, trying to modernize it in its different areas, and also making sure that brings benefits to all stakeholders.
“Because again, it makes no sense trying to make this change and do improvements if you actually can’t see that it’s benefiting all that involved. And what we realized in doing this work is that it’s not something which is only specially for the transportation sector. It actually touches other sectors within the country.
“So, we all need to make sure that whatever we do in developing these sector policies, that it is integrated, overall, in the public sector service in particular.”
Public transportation in many of CDB’s Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) currently faces challenges such as inadequate service, unreliability, poor organisation, and limited accessibility for vulnerable populations. Other transport services, such as route taxis, contribute to traffic congestion, pollution, and sometimes violence among and against operators. Additionally, transport infrastructure (bus stops, terminals, maintenance facilities) is highly susceptible to climate change impacts. Urban growth, rising incomes, and increased automobile dependence have led to urban sprawl, underscoring the need for integrated transit and land use planning to reduce private vehicular traffic.
In 2021, CDB commissioned consulting firm MCRIT to assess and propose solutions for creating a sustainable public transport system, using Grenada and Saint Lucia as case studies.