COMMUTING will soon be stress-free for residents on the East Bank of Berbice (EBB), as the $1.2B road rehabilitation project advances.

The exercise which commenced in August 2017, was delayed due to the obligatory removal of utilities; however, it is now back on stream, the Department of Public Information has reported. Resident engineer, Joel Tucker told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that works are ongoing in the Everton area which has fewer encumbrances.

He explained that workers are currently widening the area which also involves full reconstruction. “Then we’ll add on our base course and we should be on target to do the asphalt layer or the paving, sometime early in February and this will be roughly about 1.3 kilometres of work of the 5km.”

Tucker highlighted that the work officially began on December 04, 2017, when the ministry received its first consignment of white sand. Thereafter, excavation works commenced in the Glasgow area. However, preparatory works such as the establishment of an office and the procurement process were already in place. The project will see the construction of five kilometres of roadway from Overwinning to Everton, equipped with new features aimed at bolstering road safety.

“We’ll have the installation of highway lighting coming from Stanleytown in New Amsterdam right through to Everton; installation of guard rails; improvement in terms of traffic signage, and also the horizontal road signage as well,” Tucker underlined. According to the resident engineer, the project will also see four structures rehabilitated and completely reconstructed. These are the bridges at Gay Park and Edinburg, a culvert between Edinburg and Gay Park and a culvert at the Baptiste turn.

During 2017, the road was found to be in a deplorable condition following an assessment by the ministry. “It was so bad, that in the second quarter in 2017 the ministry deployed a maintenance team to bring relief to the residents of Berbice. There were a series of craters and potholes and the road improvement aspect was literally nonexistent. There were hardly, if any, signs in the school zones and there was no such thing as a pedestrian crossing,” Tucker explained.

This multi-million-dollar venture is being executed by the Ministry’s Special Project Unit, utilising its own equipment and employing persons from the EBB area. Contracts for the bridges and lighting were awarded to Yunas Civil and Building Construction Services and Cummings Electrical Company Limited respectively.

The scheduled deadline for completion of the project is August 3. The Ministry of Public Infrastructure was allocated $35B in the 2018 National Budget, to support infrastructural development across the country. Of that amount, $14.3B has been allocated to the construction, rehabilitation, upgrading, and maintenance of road network.