Lil wuk and big wuk

Dec 09, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Public Works has big plans. It is involved in planning for bridges across the Demerara River and the Corentyne River. And it is also going to build a new highway in West Demerara and a new bypass roadway to link Diamond and Ogle.
These are major infrastructural projects. But along the way, the Ministry should try to fix the smaller problems, which confront commuters every day.
Take for example the management of traffic on the East Coast. The old East Coast Public Road has been extended as a four-lane highway from Better Hope to Annandale. But instead of helping traffic move faster, it is doing the opposite.
In addition, the main reason for this is that somebody had a brilliant idea to reduce the speed limit between Annandale and Triumph to 65 miles per hour. What then was the purpose of spending all those millions to build a four-lane highway when the speed limit in that stretch is now what one expects in a two-lane public road?
The other problem on the East Coast is that every 800 meters there is a traffic light. When they were building this road, it should have been predicted that if you widen the road to four lanes, then it will be more difficult for vehicles coming out of the villages to merge into or cross over the two carriageways. Instead of widening the road to four lanes, which cost millions of US dollars, the government should have constructed an alternative road from the back of the villages to link to Georgetown and to the East Bank.
This was one of the criticisms, which was made way back in 1994 when the PPP/C constructed the Railway Embankment. That road is too close to the Public Road. Persons living at the back of the dozens of villages still have to find their way to either the Public Road or the Embankment to obtain transportation. The Railway Embankment therefore did not solve the problem of getting people easier to their homes. The Embankment Road was too close to the East Coast Public Road.
At present, contractors are undertaking road works on the Sheriff Street – Mandela Avenue roadway. Works are being done at the junction where David Street intersects with the Railway Embankment and Sheriff Street. This is one of the busiest junctions in the country.
Instead of simply widening the road as appears to be the plan, the government should be asking for a variation in the contract to allow for the immediate construction of a roundabout at the junction. The space is there for a roundabout. As Barbados has shown, you can have small roundabouts, which works just as well as the large one, which Guyana has at the Seawall, Vlissengen Road and Carifesta Avenue junction.
That roundabout was not the first in Guyana. The colonial authorities had established a roundabout in the heart of the city. It is located in the vicinity of the Cenotaph in front of Guyana Stores. There are also traffic lights at that junction, and this leads to a massive build- up of traffic.
A roundabout can easily be created at this junction without the need for any significant engineering or financial outlay. All that is required is for lanes to be drawn around the roundabout, using the same principle as what exists at Kitty. Vehicles would only enter the roundabout when it is safe to do so.
If the Ministry of Public Infrastructure addresses these issues – the problem on the East Coast, the creation of roundabouts at the junction of David and Sheriff Streets, in central Georgetown in front of Guyana Stores and at the junction of Vlissengen Road and Homestretch Avenue, there would be vastly improved traffic flow in that entire Square.
This would avoid a major problem, which Trinidad faced. A great deal of that country’s oil wealth went into building highways and flyovers. And the more these were built, the more were needed, and more construction had to take place.
Guyana cannot have a situation in which its oil wealth is used to finance infrastructure chasing after development. There has to be simpler and less costly solutions and it is for the Ministry of Public Works to implement those solutions.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)