BETTER CAN BE DONE!

Feb 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Planning! Planning! Proper Planning! This is all that is takes to make things work the way they should work.
Proper planning is however a scarce commodity in Guyana, a log pulled from the shelves in favour of fire-fighting measures. As such we seem to start projects without thinking them through in their entirety. The result is great discomfort to the citizens of this country, loss of man hours, loss of income and loss of precious time.
Take for example the La Penitence Public Road, one of the main thoroughfares in the city. This road is important because there are not many such roads linking the southern and central parts of Georgetown to the East Bank of Demerara.
There used to be a time when this road used to be almost impassable on Sunday because of a market which was more on the roadway that it was in the market itself which was virtually abandoned. After all, why would someone want to enter the market proper when street vendors were allowed to sell right on the roadway? And who gave a hoot about the fact that persons going to the airport had to crawl their way through this main thoroughfare congested by sellers.
The government is now upgrading this important link but it seems that very little attention has been paid to making the necessary adjustments so as to avoid inconvenience to members of the public.
At present, motorists have to detour through Albouystown. These side streets, however, should have been put in a state of readiness to handle the heavy traffic that will now flow through them. All it takes is one pothole to slow traffic to a crawl and there will be a traffic jam stretching for hundreds of meters. Or all it will take is one vehicle parked badly in one of the side streets to have the same effect. These are the simple things that planners need to consider when they are undertaking projects so that these measures can be put in place to minimize the inconveniences to the public.
The authorities should have done certain things. Firstly they should have placed temporary no parking markings on these side streets so as to avoid bottlenecks. This would allow for the smooth flow of traffic through the detours.
Secondly, they should have fixed some of the roads through which traffic has to detour and made some temporary one way so as to avoid problems. This would hardly have cost the authorities a fortune but consider the stress and the problems that result when motorists are caught in a jab because these arrangements have not been made.
Another observation concerns the hours of work. When you are repairing a community street it is all well and good for work to only be done during daylights hours.
But when you are dealing with a highway or a major thoroughfare such as the La Penitence Public Road, the authorities should ensure that the length of the project is kept to the shortest possible time. This means that the contract should insist that there be around the clock work, twenty four hours so as to reduce the number of days involved.
In most countries of the world highways and freeways are repaired at nights. It has been done in Guyana also and should be done continuously.
In fact because we do not have too many thoroughfares linking the city to the East Bank and because the La Penitence Public Road is so critical, then work should have been undertaken twenty-four hours a day.
More is likely to be done at nights because the traffic is not heavy after hours and therefore the workers can be more productive. This will ensure that the project is completed faster, thus reducing the inconvenience.
It makes sense to build roads in the night in Guyana. The place is cooler and entire roadways can be closed off to facilitate work. Workers in the cooler temperatures will work better and labour productivity will be increased. More work can be done at nights than during the day once there is necessary lighting.
The government should therefore examine this matter and see whether they cannot ask the contractors to work around the clock. The government must see their job as facilitating the public, not just awarding the contract and paying the contractor.

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