Study being undertaken for traffic congestion

Jun 11, 2014 News

Expressions of interest are currently being exercised by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation for an Urban Transport Study (UTS) to be undertaken by a contracted entity to see how best the issue of traffic congestion can be mitigated.
This is according to the Public Works Ministry Chief Works Officer Geoffrey Vaughn, who highlighted that expressions of interest for the UTS will be closing sometime in July, and afterwards “a study will commence in terms of Georgetown and its environs.”
According to Vaughn, the Ministry will be evaluating the expressions of interest to see which contractors meet the criteria and then divide those contracts and tender for the project.
He continued that “based on what Terms of Reference (TOR) we set up we evaluate those contracts that have been short listed, then we give them what the TOR is looking for in the execution of the project, and they would do the entire study and we would do an assessment with them and make the necessary recommendations to the government of Guyana.”
Vaughn said that when the study is concluded, one will be able to ascertain exactly what should be done to mitigate the traffic congestion.
“The study looks at parking, it looks at the use of streets, the best areas for certain buses to park, where cars should be, a variety of things, so the study should cover all of that and everything else.”
Just recently, Traffic Chief Hugh Denhert told Kaieteur News that his department in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works,is working to get the traffic lights within the Georgetown area coordinated so as to reduce traffic congestion.
According to Denhert, the lights will be coordinated in such a way that there will be a steady flow of traffic “so that if you get the green light at Regent Street you will get it on Croal Street and then at Brickdam, it might just be couple of seconds different, so you don’t have to stop when you are going right through.”
He said that this procedure was already being implemented, but the lights that are using power from the GPL (Guyana Power and Light) grid, and whenever there is a power outage it affects the coordination of the lights “so sometimes you might find that when you reach one corner and get the green light and you just go up a corner and get the red and have to stop, that starts the congestion.”
The Traffic Chief did note that a study is currently being conducted by the Home Affairs Ministry “to make certain streets one-way to see if by doing that it would relieve the congestion somewhat.”
Vaughn mentioned however, that the recent study being undertaken by the Home Affairs Ministry to convert streets into one-ways, to ease the congestion, has nothing to do with the UTS being promulgated by the Public Works Ministry.
Additionally the ongoing road works and laying of sewage pipes around town has exacerbated the congestion.
The flow of traffic on the Georgetown and outlying roadways is becoming more congested on a daily basis, because there are now many more vehicles being imported while the road network remains the same, hence the reason to undertake a detailed study.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News