The Demerara Harbour Bridge yesterday reopened to light traffic and is expected to facilitate heavy-duty vehicles by this afternoon.
“We are practically 90% to 95% complete with respect with the works to reinstate the bridge,” harbour bridge company General Manager Rawlston Adams announced yesterday.
The bridge reopened at 1 pm for “light vehicles”: buses, cars and light canter trucks in the vicinity of three tonnes, based on Adams’ definition.
“We still not finish. We still have to reposition the original pontoon that is about 50% completed and we are hoping that those works are completed so that we can have our target of having large vehicles sometime tomorrow,” he added.
Adams, at a news conference, said the company was “fairly confident” that it would be able to meet the target of facilitating the heavy-duty vehicles by noon today. He added that the significant completion of works on the bridge was because of a dedicated team, of which he was proud to be a member.
Transport Minister Robeson Benn, in the National Assembly yesterday, assured that the bridge is in the best shape for the last 30 years. He added that problems started on the bridge after a pontoon was stolen from the bridge a few months ago. However, the pontoon was, recovered in the Mahaica, a few weeks after it went missing.
Benn stated that the authorities knew that the support system of the bridge was weak and yet they allowed heavy-duty vehicles to use the bridge. The pontoon would have been replaced soon, he added.
On Monday morning, a small section of the bridge sank, after the jaws of one of the piers supporting two temporary pontoons broke, leaving hundreds of commuters stranded for some amount of time as they thought that the issue would have been resolved later in the day.
The commuters travelling from the West Demerara, when told that the bridge would not be fixed over a 24-hours period, flocked the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling, creating a chaotic situation since all of them scampered to get speedboats to take them across the river. The chaotic situation continued during the return trips at rush hour (between 4 pm to 6 pm), with all commuters hurrying to get home. The car parks at Vreed-en-Hoop were packed to capacity on the first day of the bridge closure, with few vehicles available to transport all the travellers there. On the second day of the non-operation of the bridge, persons travelling to the West Demerara were still faced with the transportation challenge, since there was a shortage of gasoline on the West Bank and West Coast of Demerara.
As a result of the rush, boat operators were granted permits to ply the route over a 24-hours basis, provided that their vessels were equipped with navigation lights.
As a result of the situation, some travellers called for the re-introduction of the ferry service.
