During a community meeting held by Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill, on Monday evening, residents shared differing views on the road improvement project to widen the corridors from Conversation Tree to Dennis Street in Georgetown.
Also present were Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine, Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore and Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Ashni Singh.
The corridor is approximately 1.9 kilometers from the East Coast Demerara Highway and will connect to Dennis Street. It will also be linked to Sheriff Street from the Dennis Street corridor.
The project launched by the Ministry of Public Works is valued at $1.8 billion and will entail the construction of a four-lane carriageway from the East Coast Highway to Delhi Street. It includes a double-lane carriageway on the reserve west of Delhi Street for northbound traffic and will also see the implementation of concrete revetments between the East Coast Demerara Highway and Railway Embankment, and concrete drains on both sides of the proposed roadway between the railway embankment and Delhi Street. Also part of the works is the construction of two large concrete bridges to establish a connection to Dennis Street
Works on the project have been divided into two lots and contracts were awarded in August. Lot 8A of the project is being executed by S. Jagmohan Construction and General Supplies Inc to the tune of $1,066, 358,738. Lot 8B was awarded to Trinidad Company, Kallco Guyana Inc to the tune of $830,293,458.
Minister Edghill explained that the road will be created to enable various routes to enter and leave Georgetown as well as to ease the traffic congestion on the corridor. The road consists of basically two, two-lane roads with a boulevard in the middle. The concrete drains, he added, are designed to reduce flooding in the city.
Alana King, a resident of Blygezeight Gardens, queried, “While I’m quite pleased with the development… going on around the country, one of my concerns would be the flood impact. In Blygezeight we do experience flooding with a slight shower of rain… How do you plan on dealing with that situation?
Edghill responded, “Effectively, my project engineer and I just had a discussion in the office this afternoon before we came. The four lane will come straight across and there will be a culvert with flood control mechanisms, where the road reaches the railway embankment that will connect all the four corners of the flood control mechanisms inside”
He added: “Earlier, the engineer did say to you that while we are putting in the drains we will be making them deeper so that they could be able to hold more volume in terms of water… With concrete drains they might be narrower but would be able to hold more volume so we are putting the flood control structures to ensure adequate drainage.”
Bel Air resident Ralph Ramkarran asked, “Why is it the people of the community could not be consulted before? They were no community meetings and because these community meetings are not held promptly, not held in time. A large turnout like this will have a lot of complaints. A four lane highway bisecting that road will bring noise pollution, it will bring fumes pollution, it will bring minibus chaos, it will bring accidents, it will deprive the large number of people who work in these communities all along here up to the Conversation Tree to get traffic to go up on the east coast. All of that will happen, all of that chaos will ensue.
What are the safety precautions for us? How will residents coming out of Bel Air access the public road? Will there be a roundabout in that area? These are all questions which do not require the presence of a vice president to answer, these are questions for the officials, but because of the fact that this work has already commenced and we are now having this meeting. We of these communities do not have the answer to all these here”.
In reply, Vice President Jagdeo stated, “I don’t mind being here, if you want the answers we could give you the answers… a lot of the questions that you raised are important but there are fair answers to them. Those very concerns occupied our attention in designing these facilities, that’s why you don’t have a four lane highway there basically. It’s two lanes on that side, two lanes on this side and a boulevard in the centre so that the same people can walk from the back, those who have to go out there, they can now walk down on a lighted boulevard with trees that can go all the way from one end to the other. It will have a smooth integration to ensure that the children from the primary school are safe, that the community can use these roads in a safe manner, that there will be adequate traffic control.”
Another member of the public wanted to know, “Will this roadway that we will be having the usage of container trucks, sand trucks, etc? Every single day almost you hear about robbery by the youths in the morning when people are going to work. I am living not far from here and we never see police presence around here and I would like to know if they would have speed humps on these roads to ease the traffic.
Jagdeo responded by saying, “Traffic control with restrictions… is something we actually don’t enforce on our roads but we should. A lot of roads get damaged because trucks run on them that are overweight and create a different dynamic. Definitely you have to have speed limits in these communities and they are going to be different from the highway and we have to enforce them… I’m sorry to hear about how these people who are being robbed but we have a police station just around the corner here. I will ask Robeson Benn probably to come back to the community and talk about policing and issues… bring the Commissioner of Police to talk about these things. I don’t think our competency extends to that area here today.”
Another resident highlighted, “There is a robbery every week at the Sophia gas station road, every week. If you can put a few street lights there it will benefit the citizens. And if you can do that road it will take off some of the traffic.”
