Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Com­muters us­ing the Diego Mar­tin High­way ap­pear to be re­ceiv­ing an elec­tion treat as Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has promised to de­liv­er a dual car­riage­way in the area be­fore Au­gust. Im­bert said at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence that the Gov­ern­ment would be fork­ing out $9 mil­lion to ac­quire prop­er­ties that would al­low for the com­plet­ed con­struc­tion of the Diego Mar­tin High­way in four months. "Four months from now, when this project is com­plet­ed, you will eas­i­ly be able to dri­ve from the cor­po­rate area all the way down to Di­a­mond Vale with­out hav­ing to stop and com­ing on and off the road, there­fore cre­at­ing con­ges­tion," Im­bert said.

He said the com­plet­ed high­way would fa­cil­i­tate the cre­ation of a "true" two-lane, north­bound car­riage­way of the Diego Mar­tin High­way, which would run along­side the south­bound car­riage­way. Im­bert said he ex­pect­ed that it would have a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in traf­fic con­ges­tion in the com­mer­cial area in Vic­to­ria Gar­dens and the Morne Co­co Road in­ter­sec­tion. He said that the project would run from the Pow­der Mag­a­zine turn-off and go north­wards in­to Diego Mar­tin down past Vic­to­ria Gar­dens to Ac­ton Court.

Im­bert added that the com­plet­ed high­way would not af­fect the Star­lite shop­ping plaza. He in­di­cat­ed that Cab­i­net yes­ter­day agreed to the land ac­qui­si­tion need­ed to com­plete the project. He in­di­cat­ed that five pro­pri­eties–three res­i­den­tial and two com­mer­cial pro­pri­eties–were ac­quired. "But it is just small pieces of them (the prop­er­ties)...We tried as best as we can to avoid full prop­er­ties–just the pieces that we need­ed to do our work," Im­bert said. Im­bert was un­able to give the cost for the high­way's con­struc­tion. He added that equip­ment pro­cured from a pri­vate con­trac­tor was mo­bilised in the area.