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THE ACCESS ROAD INTO DIAMOND IS DANGEROUS

Dec 19, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The long and winding main access road into the Diamond Housing Scheme is treacherous. For such a major roadway, it is far too narrow. Amongst the traffic that uses that roadway each day are cyclists and pedestrians. Each day, they put their lives on the line because the road is not wide enough to cater for bicycles and pedestrians.
Those who are interested in protecting the image of former President Bharrat Jagdeo must do something and something urgently to widen that roadway, install a footpath and a cycle lane because as things presently stand both cyclists and pedestrians are at a high risk of being run over by the motor vehicles that traverses that roadway.
The creation of the Diamond Housing Scheme was one the main infrastructural projects of President Jagdeo. It was intended to become a major population centre so much so that it was touted for secondary town status.
A medical diagnostic centre was created, secondary and primary schools built and banks and business began to gravitate towards the area as buildings began to be erected. The housing scheme was supposed to represent the vision of the former President, except now that it seems as if a number of things were overlooked, one of which of course is the need for more than one access road and to ensure that these access roads were properly constructed to accommodate two- way vehicular traffic as well as cater for pedestrians and cyclists.
As the 2011 election approached, the PPPC hoped that this massive housing scheme would bring them a great many votes and allow them finally to sweep Region Four which in the previous election was narrowly won by the PNCR.
Those expectations were shattered when it was discovered that the votes in the housing scheme were split almost 50-50 between the ruling party and the opposition. In other words, the creation of the housing scheme did not bring electoral rewards.
The rewards that the PPPC did enjoy are going to be further reduced unless something is done and is done urgently about the state of the roads in that community. If the poor infrastructure persists, then the government will lose more votes.
The vision that the former President had about that scheme will become foggy and he will find it even more difficult to ask people to look at the big picture. Diamond Housing Scheme is the big picture and right now that picture is looking dismal.
People are suffering to get out of the scheme and it is torturous for residents to navigate the roads to get back in. There was obviously poor planning in the design of this scheme but it is not too late for this to be remedied.
The question that needs to be asked however is whether there is that sense of urgency about remedying the problems in the Diamond Housing Scheme. Instead of addressing these problems, the authorities seem more concerned with increasing settlements on the East Bank.
It is not wild planning that is responsible for the government wanting to pack hundreds of thousands of persons onto the East Bank. There has to be a reason why this is happening, why there is a need to increase human habitation on the East Bank to this extent and it is for the politicians and investigative journalists to ask themselves why tens of thousands of house lots were created on the East Bank. What is the agenda at work?
Could the agenda be to create a new wave of infrastructure projects to cater for the increased demands for transportation? Will Diamond benefit from any such wave or will it be left behind while emphasis is given to other housing settlements where private developers are staking their claims.

 

 

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