Residents of Kuru Kururu, on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, along with residents from surrounding villages, are calling on the relevant authorities to quickly fix the Kuru Kururu-Laluni Access Road, which has become nearly impassable.
The lengthy stretch of road, which connects the two communities, is used by residents of Laluni and those living near to the village. Persons seeking to access their farmlands to take produce to Kuru Kururu and other villages are also forced to use the asphalt thoroughfare, which residents say is quickly transforming into a “mud road.”
When this newspaper visited the area last Friday, the road was marred by countless potholes of varying sizes and other defects. The road’s shoulders showed large signs of erosion and in some areas, large craters covered its entire width.
A resident of the area, Olsteen Rollox, who has been living in Kuru Kururu for more than four decades, was seen pushing his bicycle, carefully manoeuvring around the potholes, carrying a bag of coconuts he had retrieved from his farm.
Rollox related that the road was rehabilitated before the 2015 elections but since then, no further repair works were done to it, despite it showing signs of deterioration for more than two years.
“Even though I got my bicycle, I can’t ride through this properly. You see these holes size? I’ve been to a lot of places in this country and I have never seen a road so bad. This is the worst road I have ever seen in the country,” Rollox stated.
The man explained that during the rainy season, the road becomes more difficult to traverse since the large holes become filled with water.
“You lucky you come here and the sun shining and you ain’t see it when it wet with all them pools. You woulda never make it more than 100 meters with that car. When the rain fall is all them big holes does full up and you does can’t tell the difference between the road and a creek how it does cover up so. So if you don’t know the road and you traveling on it, is trouble you [will] end up in,” Rollox explained.
Some of the residents opined that the road was not built properly and that the foundation should be assessed.
“One look at this road and you could see that patch work and them things not going to work. It’s from the structure they have to look at it because I can’t understand how it end up in this condition and is like the other day it get fix. We were happy, very happy, when it get fix but in no time, like as soon as you blink, it like this,” Rollox said.
Drivers also related to Sunday Stabroek that the state of the road has resulted in them having to bear the cost of constant repairs.
“If you don’t have a big vehicle, like a truck or one of those big vans, you’re going to have a very hard time using this road even when it dry. Especially if you’ve never been through it before. I can’t tell you how many times me, a person who does drive up and down this road fairly often, drop into a new hole that I can’t remember. There’s so many holes on the road and yet more appear every day. In fact, there’s so many holes and craters and all sorts of breakages and erosion on the road that you can’t even call it an asphalt road anymore. If you look is more sand and mud than asphalt,” a driver and resident of Kuru Kururu, Jason Downer, explained.
Downer also pointed out that the road is impossible to use during the nights due to the lack of proper lighting.
“If you think you find it hard to travel on this road during the day, must check it during the night. Is every single pothole you will end up dropping in and when you done and you come out back is all your tyres, shocks and a whole set of parts you does got to replace. This ain’t making it at all. Is best they had left it how it was before, ’cause it wasn’t in this state,” Downer explained.
Another driver likened travelling on the road to playing a video game and pointed out that many times vehicles have been stuck in the large craters.
“I remember when I was small there was a video game where you were controlling a car and you had to dodge from incoming obstacles. That is the best description I could tell anybody that does ask about the road. One time you driving on the left hand side and a next few minutes you end up on the right hand side of the road because of all the holes. At one section on the road, you literally have to drive off of it because of [how] big the pothole big. You have to drive off of the road and drive along the shoulder until you reach a part of the road you could drive back onto and that ain’t making it,” the driver explained.
The drivers and residents say they are calling on the relevant authorities to do an inspection of the road and to fix it immediately, since it is currently making their lives very difficult.
“All we are asking is for them to just come and take one look at this road and see what’s going on. ’Cause I know if they aware of what’s going on here they wouldn’t leave it like this and if they know that it like this and they lef it just so is disrespect to we in this place,” Rollox said, while pointing out that the road benefits all the residents and should be a priority given its current condition.
