Dear Editor,
I would like to make reference dated back to last Thursday, February 26th, 2026, with my headline statement made in the Daily Herald, "Achken Richardson calls for urgent three-day summit on traffic crisis." And thereafter, refer to the Daily Herald headline of Friday, March 13th, 2026, referring to "Visitors warn St. Maarten is losing its appeal amid daily traffic chaos and over-development."
The reason for this very serious follow-up commentary is to once again seriously draw everyone's attention to this Traffic Crisis on the Island in its entirety, North and South. Whenever we constantly read about headlines and comments being made in our daily newspaper, social media outlets, radio programs etc, regarding this subject matter, we continue to read, hear, and see everyone just making their own separate comments as to the consequences of us not addressing this very serious island-wide problem, rather than us who are the professionals jointly coming together to present viable and realistic solutions. This is not a them problem, but a we and an us problem.
I was really hoping to have already received reactions and feedback as to how we would be able to swiftly come together to comprehensively present options as to how we would be able to approach and resolve this Crisis in Phases. Again, I wish to call out the Stakeholders as I mentioned in this previous Article of the Daily Herald, indicating that our Country Leaders, both North and South, take the lead in this Traffic Crisis Situation.
The question again is, Who is going to take the initiative and make this First Step, knowing that this traffic crisis is not just putting our tourist industry and economy in jeopardy, but it, more so, affects the well-being and the best way of life of our own residents.
Achken Roberto Richardson
