ONLY emergency vehicles and automobiles belonging to the Public Transportation Service Corporation (PTSC) will have access to the Priority Bus Route (PBR) tomorrow, Gold Commander for the Summit, Assistant Police Commissioner Steve Waldron, revealed yesterday.

Not even maxi taxis that normally ply their trade along the PBR will be allowed to drive between Orange Grove Road in Tacarigua and Abattoir Road in Port of Spain tomorrow, Waldron said.

Individuals with authorised passes for the route will also be denied access to the PBR tomorrow, Waldron said.

These traffic restrictions which have been put in place to facilitate the arrival of delegates for this weekend’s Fifth Summit of the Americas are expected to last the entire day, Waldron said in a telephone interview with the Express.

The west-bound lanes of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, between the Piarco intersection and the Lighthouse, will be used as the primary transportation route for all dignitaries visiting for the Summit.

And the highway’s eastbound lanes, covering the same distance, will be converted into a two-way to facilitate all other vehicular traffic, from 11.59 p.m. today until midnight on Sunday.

The PBR, which was deemed a security risk for delegates by Summit officials, will only act as a secondary route in the case of an emergency.

However, access to the PBR will be restricted as a precautionary measure, Waldron said.

’All maxi taxis which now operate along the Priority Bus Route will be required to utilise the Eastern Main Road and Churchill Roosevelt Highway and the Beetham Highway on April 17, 2009,’ a newspaper advertisement placed by the Ministry of National Security stated yesterday.

However, when contacted yesterday Secretary of the Route Two Maxi Taxi Association, Albert Lee Young, said his organisation was still in the dark about the operation of the PBR for tomorrow.

The Route Two Maxi Taxi Association is in charge of the Red Band Maxi Taxis that ply their trade between Arima and Port of Spain.

’We do not have any specific directions, we still have no confirmation as yet but for us it is business as usual,’ Lee Young said in a telephone interview with the Express yesterday.

’If that is the case then I hope by tomorrow (today) they give us some idea of what will be going on Friday,’ Lee Young said when the advertisement was read to him yesterday.

Tomorrow’s traffic restrictions on the PBR are expected to begin around 6 a.m, the advertisement stated.

Apart from tomorrow, the traffic restrictions for the PBR are also expected to be enforced on Sunday when the delegates are scheduled to leave the country.

Sunday’s traffic restrictions are expected to start at 11 a.m, while ’the route reverts to normalcy on April 18’, the advertisement stated.

’You are advised to travel earlier to minimise any inconvenience,’ the National Security Ministry noted in the advertisement.