The removal of the lights and the opening of the new El Socorro North Access Road will reduce traffic congestion, says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. "The completed works will significantly reduce congestion along the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, while improving accessibility to regions north and south of the highways," she said. The PM was giving the feature address at the opening ceremony of the El Socorro North Access Road near the El Socorro traffic lights on Monday.
Persad-Bissessar said this, in turn, would have a "tremendous positive impact" on the national economy through reduced travel time, reduced vehicle operating cost and reduced negative impact on the national workforce. She said the Government's continuing transformation of the road network would be nationally based and not subject to the pettiness of partisan politics. "As such, implementation of projects will be undertaken in every constituency and will focus on extensive, simultaneous distribution of projects along critical links of the road network over the next four years," she said. Persad-Bissessar said through the road upgrade projects, the Government had witnessed local contractors consistently producing timely, cost-effective, quality products.
She also suggested to Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner that mango trees could be planted on the median dividing the highways, which she said she saw on a visit to Brasilia in Brazil recently. "Perhaps we can plant mango trees here, fruit trees, so we can get food and beauty at the same time," she added. Warner, in his address, said there was no election in the air now, tomorrow or next week, yet the PP Government was delivering. "We have demonstrated that we can do plenty with little or no money," he said. Warner said that on May 24 (the first anniversary of the PP's general election victory), Persad-Bissessar would provide a booklet of achievements and citizens would see what the Government had done. "We have been achieving all over...We are no respecter of persons or places," he said.
The project cost of $24.3 million and was completed by Coosal's Construction Ltd. He said roadworks to reduce traffic congestion had begun in Preysal, Chaguanas and Maraval. Warner said the Works Ministry would be going into the PM's constituency of Siparia today, to start roadworks that were 20 or 30 years overdue. St Joseph MP Herbert Volney, noting that his son almost lost his life at the El Socorro traffic lights four years ago, described the El Socorro North Access Road as the new "priority car route," taking motorists quickly into and out of Port-of-Spain. Barataria/San Juan MP Dr Fuad Khan noted that residents gave up businesses and properties in the area to accommodate the new road. He said taxi drivers had requested the construction of a flyover in the area and said they might have to raise their fees because of extra movement.