The Avenue of the Republic and Croal Street canals in the city will be covered with temporary bridges converting them to parking lots so as to alleviate traffic congestion in the city, the government announced yesterday.
The proposal was the brainchild of Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali, who, at Tuesday’s Cabinet Meeting outlined the plans to ease the parking congestion in the downtown capital area.
“Cabinet has favourably considered the proposal from the minister …for the non-permanent covering, bridging, of more main canals in the city… Avenue of the Republic and south Croal Street canals for the introduction,” Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon told a press conference yesterday.
Luncheon said that while the structural dyna-mics of the covers had not yet been worked out they should be able to be moved to allow for cleaning or desilting of the canals when necessary.
He said that although Cabinet has found favour in the proposal Ali was given a directive by government to hold consultations with the public to get feedback and proposals before the project is initiated.
According to the Cabi-net Secretary, Ali mentioned that he has seen the same semi-permanent structures used in other countries. “…I don’t know how it is done I am a bit titillated by the physics,” Luncheon said.
Ali’s proposal came against the background of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) pointing out that the 9,999 number plates allocated for the SS vehicle series had been exhausted and as such the TT series was being initiated.
Questioned on how soon this new initiative will be implemented, Luncheon said, “The minister, as we all know is a man of action and the entities in the cluster in his sector are entities known for their rather avid response to Cabinet’s instructions so I believe the public consultations will be soon unleashed.
“It seems, at least at the level of Cabinet, a rather reasonable intervention to address some aspects of traffic congestion and parking, so on the action that the public consultations do indeed support the initiative then it’s a matter of the physics; how to construct non-permanent load-bearing support for those vehicles and trucks and, I must admit, how to prevent abuse,” he added.
