The current road safety deficiencies of the four-lane highway along the East Bank Demerara will not be repeated in a proposed four-lane extension from Providence to Grove, according to a representative of the UK firm doing the technical, environmental and economic feasibility study for the project.
Speaking at a public consultation at the St. Stanislaus College auditorium on Thursday evening, Mott MacDonald team leader Stuart Hughes said a detailed road safety audit has been done of the existing four-lane segment and the findings are being analysed. “The objectives of this road safety audit was twofold; one is to inform our design so hopefully we do not repeat the same mistakes that have been made during the construction of the existing four-lane facility but also, I guess more importantly to the ministry, is that they can then prepare a package of works to hopefully alleviate the situation that currently stands,” Hughes said.
According to him, it is an “open secret” that there are road safety issues with the existing structure. “I think we all use that road, we know that people tend to slip across that road; they’re not necessarily designated crossing areas and a number of those intersections are just very tricky to navigate; you have someone driving in front of you and then they suddenly stop and turn right,” he related.
The actual project will extend from the Providence Cricket Stadium to the Grove/Good Success intersection and there are currently two options available to the company. The first would see the entire four-lane running along the public road to Good Success. Option two would entail the four lanes ending at the entrance to the Diamond Housing Scheme with two lanes continuing to Good Success while another two-lane road would be constructed behind Grove as a bypass before merging with the public road at Good Success.
Hughes said option one would include wide shoulders to accommodate disabled vehicles off the roadway and sidewalks on either sides. He was reluctant to say whether this option would result in houses being moved but acknowledged that there would be some issues with fence lines in Grove. “There will be challenges with fitting 76 feet of roadway through that village. Currently, the fence line does not allow for that in certain areas so there are implications of obstructions.”
He added that given the attention that will go towards road safety, parking area is likely to be reduced in Grove. “Parking will of course be a huge issue, it’s a commercialised area and it’s not unlikely that that section of Grove can in fact become the Regent Street of that area given the actual number of people who live up there. So whatever we do we will have to look at both on road and off road parking solutions,” Hughes stated.
On the issues associated with option two, he noted part of the government reserve where it is proposed the road will run was used as a dumpsite and will have to be excavated and refilled with good construction material. “It involves also properly backfilling a thousand metres of existing drains between Grove and Samatta Point and replacing the actual reservoir,” Hughes added.
He noted too that part of the alignment also passes through areas where there are houses.
Meanwhile, works ministry engineer Patrick Thompson said that an IDB team will visit on August 23 to prepare a “project funding proposal.”
“They are required to examine the preliminary information that Mott MacDonald would have collected to be able to put forward a funding proposal which will be during the month of November. It will be placed before the Board of Directors of the IDB to determine whether or not the project will secure funding.”
Mott MacDonald, he said, will in December submit their final plans for the project with the government likely to sign a loan agreement with the IDB in January.
Thompson gave three to four months for the prequalification process for the contract to be completed before the start of work which he said should last “about two and a half years.”
Thursday evening’s event was a national consultation which followed some two weeks of more focused consultations with communities and road users expected to be affected by the project.
