Several measures are being implemented at the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) to enable maintenance work following damage to span nine, the Department of Public Information (DPI) said on Sunday.
Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill was on Sunday updated on the emergency works going forward after a series of analyses were conducted.
According to DPI, Edghill said “Every effort is being made to ensure that we could get vehicles crossing the bridge, supplies can move from the east to the west and vice versa, people can get to work, and we can respond to medical and security emergencies.”
To this end, the Minister said the usual number of daily retractions would be reduced.
“The bridge cannot be opening two times a day. We have already engaged the agents and owners of ocean-going vessels and we want that every time there is a retraction, there must be about five to six vessels passing.
“The fact that they have to slow down it means that the retractions will take a little longer than normal. We are looking at opening and closing to allow vessels to transit at times when it’s less impacting to vehicular traffic, which will be at nights”, he said, according to DPI.
There will not be any retraction between 2pm and 5pm.
Edghill said that there are times the bridge will be opened during the day to facilitate tugs and barges. He added that an analysis of the traffic pattern is being conducted and a schedule would be established.
The Minister said there are plans to place traffic police at strategic points along the bridge with radar speed guns to monitor drivers’ speed.
He said that while the damage to the bridge is caused by both vehicular and marine traffic, it is caused mostly by speeding heavy trucks and sudden braking.
The Minister said consideration is also being given to ferrying heavy-duty vehicles across the river by barge, however, landing spots on both the east and west banks of the river remain a challenge.
Meanwhile, Engineer, Marcel Gaskin, said that the issues would be fixed over short and long-term phases.
Gaskin said this includes replacing the retractor span. Currently, span nine is worse than span ten, but both have suffered severe damage. Gaskin said that the situation should be fixed over a six-month period.
Highlighting some of the short-term measures, the engineer said that the “roller cards” will be replaced.
“We have to design and install what we call an exoframe, which is a frame to the outside of the existing bridge structure that is going to support those panels of the retractor spans that are broken. We have to procure spare static rollers and spare travelling rollers. All these are rollers that enable the bridge to open and close. We want to have spares, so in case anything happens to the existing ones we have those in place,” Gaskin added, according to DPI.
Edghill apologised for the inconvenience caused during the traffic backup on Saturday, saying that the closure of the bridge between the period of 11:30 to 1 pm was to allow the pins to be fixed.
However, the one and a half hour of work did not remedy the problem at span nine.
“All it did was to allow us to fix one of the 272 pins to get the bridge into some shape to allow for retractions for marine traffic and to keep vehicular traffic moving”, he said.
