Dear Editor,
It is always a pleasure to encounter on the telephone or in person a public official who responds to your enquiries in courteous, informative and articulate fashion. Such was my recent experience with Ms Yurlander Hughes, the Traffic Manager of Transport & Harbours Department. But what the good lady confirmed to me afforded me no pleasure at all.
I was extremely concerned one year ago, when I stood on the vast and decrepit expanse of what was once our proud Stelling at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara which facilitated a steady flow of vehicles and passengers to and from the capital city to the east. What horrified me then, and moreso now, was an expanding mud flat just outside the stelling which would render the mooring of any vessel alongside quite impossible. It is the confirmation by the Traffic Manager of this physical condition and that there were no plans to dredge the area in the near future that cause me my present depth of concern. I had also been hearing of plans for the use of the structure of the stelling for purposes totally inconsistent with its future use as a facility for ferry boats or boats of any description.
There is, two miles to the south, the Demerara Harbour Bridge, stalwart but frightfully expensive to maintain and now totally indispensable to the lives of thousands who take it for granted as they traverse it in the course of daily communication between east and west Demerara and beyond. Most of the county of Essequibo at some stage will turn up at Parika in full confidence that their transit into the city of Georgetown and beyond is virtually assured, simply because of that reliable structure of 6074 feet in length fondly known and taken for granted as the Harbour Bridge.
And what of the burgeoning housing schemes both governmental and private whose very location and economic cost and whose commercial and domestic comfort are premised upon the eternal availability and structural soundness of the dear old DHB.
Well, it takes some simple navigational error or mishap on the part of a vessel in transit, or as we witnessed the other day, some vehicle on fire or other accident on that bridge to transform the pleasant dream of its eternal availability into a national nightmare of uncertain duration. Imagine the confusion! There is no ferry boat to come to the aid of vehicular traffic. The additional pedestrian commuters must now contend for the limited facilities provided by the private speed-boats.
My amazement arises from the fact that I have never heard of any expressions of concern on the part of government or private sector over the potential imprisonment of all motor-vehicular traffic on both side of the Demerara River – whether in the interest of security, safety, business and domestic endeavour, all attributable to the fact that the only means of access or escape, namely the DHB is out of commission with no facility for the deployment of a ferry boat.
And so, we of civil society remain passively careless of matters crucial to our own well-being, waiting only to wring our hands in infantile complaint over that which government or some authority has done or failed to do. Ought we not to mount a representation or maybe make a noise over this crucial Vreed-en-Hoop ferry-stelling issue?
But then again, in relation to the very DHB which is our virtual salvation, ought we not to caution our own members over the sorry state of indiscipline that daily threatens its availability? I refer mainly to the excessive speed of motor vehicles way beyond the stipulated 32 kph and its deleterious effect on the plates of the roadway whose replacement is one of great inconvenience and tremendous financial outlay. In fact its seriousness may well justify the expense of the deployment of additional bridge-traffic police for the express purpose of curbing speed and preventing overtaking, two activities that are not unrelated.
I have merely disturbed the surface of the problem. But, by the way, isn’t there some Civil Defence Commission which ought to be intensely concerned over this whole issue?
Yours faithfully,
Leon O. Rockcliffe