Bridge work snarls East Bank traffic
Commuters in two hour delays
Stabroek News
November 30, 2003
It's a parking lot: City bound traffic along the East Bank Demerara public road yesterday was snarled due to bridge work at Prospect.
The East Bank Demerara public road between Providence and Grove has been a virtual parking lot the last few days with work on a bridge at Prospect village snarling traffic.
The construction is a nightmare for commuters especially over the last three days because a section close to the area being repaired has become almost impassable due to huge potholes caused by heavy rains.
Several commuters were yesterday morning stuck for hours and the sheer volume of traffic overwhelmed even the large contingent of police ranks there to keep things in order.
At one time the lines stretched from as far as Craig to the south and to Providence in the north with a waiting time of up to two hours.
Not so for at least two police vehicles -PHH 6652 and PHH 6656- which were seen jumping the line sirens blaring but with children aboard. A convoy of pick-up trucks commandeered by the army was also seen jumping the queue.
One East Bank resident asked what the emergency was that gave them such privileges. She had left home shortly after seven and was not able to arrive at work until after nine; two hours for a journey that would normally take 15 minutes. She recommended restricting trucks between six and nine in the morning when commuters have to go to work.
Communications Consultant in the Ministry of Public Works, Ajay Baksh, confirmed that the ministry was aware of the problem and had initiated investigations to determine the reason.
He said he had been in contact with the German firm, Dywidag International's Utility Manager, Joe Holder. He said constructing a diversion was one option being considered.
As for claims the construction teams were not working round the clock, he said that even if they did, the type of work dictated that a certain amount of time was needed to allow the infrastructure to cure.
In the case of the concrete culverts these required 66 days for curing, so regardless of the time spent in construction these were the contract requirements that the contractor needed to follow as set out in the project document, Baksh said.
Baksh, who was also caught in the traffic for the better part of yesterday morning, had to navigate the difficult stretch from Diamond to his home at Republic Park. He was able to witness first hand the difficulties faced by commuters on a daily basis and more particularly over the last three days.
Rehabilitation of the Prospect bridge is one of 60 such projects between Timehri and Rosignol funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
An employee at this newspaper was in line for approximately two hours on Friday afternoon on her way to Diamond. She expressed concern that persons suffering some emergency and needing to proceed quickly might fare the worst because of the delays.
According to the woman, in all her 35 years of residing at Diamond she had never suffered such delays. She also said minibuses were only transporting persons to Herstelling requiring persons from Grove to walk three miles to get home.