Charles Kong Soo

Bet­ter late than nev­er for de­liv­er­ing the Diego Mar­tin High­way ex­pan­sion, says Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Dr Amery Browne. Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view on Tues­day, Browne said he ful­ly sup­port­ed the high­way ex­pan­sion project. He said it was well-de­signed un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion and was in­tend­ed to al­le­vi­ate a se­vere traf­fic bur­den on the res­i­dents of the west­ern penin­su­la.

He added: "We were pleased that un­der this cur­rent gov­ern­ment's Works Min­is­ter Em­manuel George this project has fi­nal­ly re­sumed. Be­cause it's bet­ter late than nev­er. "I am ap­peal­ing, how­ev­er, to the min­is­ter to en­sure the com­mu­ni­ty is prop­er­ly in­formed as to the im­pli­ca­tions of the project be­cause there are many ques­tions that are now com­ing from res­i­dents who are see­ing the ad­di­tion­al work be­ing done and would like bet­ter in­for­ma­tion as to the perime­ters of these ad­di­tion­al phas­es.

"Phase one of the project was ini­ti­at­ed pri­or to the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. Spe­cif­ic com­mit­ments were then made in Par­lia­ment, un­der ques­tion­ing, by the then Min­is­ter of Works Jack Warn­er, that the project would have been swift­ly wrapped up and com­plet­ed and of course that did not hap­pen. It was an­oth­er promise bro­ken."

Diego Mar­tin North East MP and for­mer Works Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert claimed Warn­er had said con­struc­tion of the high­way would start in Feb­ru­ary 2012 and be com­plet­ed by June 2012. An­oth­er is­sue, Browne said, was that for two-and-a-half years no work had been done to the non-func­tion­ing $1.2 mil­lion Pow­der Mag­a­zine walkover el­e­va­tors, since they were in­stalled in Au­gust 2010.

The com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by Co­corite res­i­dents, sev­er­al dis­abled peo­ple and se­nior cit­i­zens and opened by Warn­er, works and in­fra­struc­ture min­is­ter at the time, and Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh.

Browne said the open­ing day was the on­ly day the el­e­va­tors worked and he had made nu­mer­ous ap­peals for the equip­ment to be fixed but to no avail. He said the open shaft, bee­hive in­fes­ta­tion, over­grown moss, and poor light­ing posed a haz­ard to the safe­ty of users of the walkover, in­clud­ing chil­dren.

He said it was even used to hang po­lit­i­cal ban­ners in­stead of re­pair­ing and en­sur­ing the el­e­va­tors were in prop­er con­di­tion for se­nior cit­i­zens and the dis­abled and he hoped they would be at­tend­ed to in short or­der. Browne de­scribed the el­e­va­tor project as "just emp­ty pub­lic re­la­tions" from the Gov­ern­ment.

What the project in­volves

Di­rec­tor of the High­ways Di­vi­sion at the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Roger Ganesh said the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (Nid­co), on be­half of the min­istry, would un­der­take ex­pan­sion to the Diego Mar­tin High­way be­tween the West­ern Main Road and near Ac­ton Court.

He said: "What we're try­ing to es­tab­lish is a high­way con­tin­u­ous­ly from the West­ern Main Road to the Diego Mar­tin High­way, where it starts. Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, the Star­lite area and Ac­ton Court are in the way of the ex­pan­sion of the high­way. "The ex­pan­sion is de­signed to al­le­vi­ate traf­fic con­ges­tion at the en­trance to the Diego Mar­tin area by the con­struc­tion of two ex­tra lanes go­ing north­wards."

Ganesh said Four Roads was a con­gest­ed area with the mall and taxi drop-offs block­ing a lane and the min­istry in­tend­ed to ex­pand the road­way there so that there would be a free flow of traf­fic and a lay­by for taxis near the Star­lite Shop­ping Plaza. When the high­way is com­plet­ed there will be a con­tin­u­ous four-lane high­way with two lanes of traf­fic go­ing north and two lanes go­ing south.

The high­way will al­so be ex­tend­ed north­wards from the Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard to the Diego Mar­tin Main Road. He said up­grades to the over­pass at Pow­der Mag­a­zine Phase Two, Co­corite, would move dri­vers across to the West­ern Main Road more safe­ly out of Diego Mar­tin and Care­nage. The­ex­ten­sion is pro­ject­ed to be com­plet­ed this year and the over­pass in ear­ly 2015.

The stages

Phase 1: Com­plet­ed over a year ago: Widen­ing the high­way, be­gin­ning near the walkover at Pow­der Mag­a­zine.

Phase 2: Pri­mar­i­ly the con­struc­tion of an ad­di­tion­al south-bound lane from Morne Co­co Road to the West­ern Main Road, a new re­tain­ing wall along the bound­ary with Four Roads School and new drains and re­align­ing a seg­ment of the ex­ist­ing south-bound lanes.

Phase 3: Con­struct­ing two new lanes run­ning north­wards along­side the ex­ist­ing south-bound lanes be­tween Ac­ton Court and Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, mak­ing it a dual high­way.

Phase 4: Widen­ing the north-bound seg­ment from Vic­to­ria Gar­dens to Ac­ton Court.