By Paul Mc Adam

SUNDAY’S more than two-hour traffic jam on the East Bank Public Road brought home the reality of the need for an alternative route in and out of Georgetown. This opinion was shared amongst stranded motorists, in no uncertain manner.

For Stacy Reece and her brother Sheldon, it was an exercise in patience. The motorist said that years ago when she heard of the East Bank Road’s four lane expansion, she envisioned a few “fly-overs” or over-passes with access to an alternate road to ease the congestion. The traffic jam, she added, showed the urgent need for the government to construct an alternate road to avoid the “madness” that occurred.

Her brother said it was time to put aside politics and use common sense to work for the betterment of all. He pointed out that initially plans were drawn up under the PNC’s Burnham Administration, but sadly never got off the ground. He questioned, “Imagine, if the authorities gave us four hours to evacuate because of an imminent tsunami? Think of the confusion!”

For the Nauth family, heading into the city, the wait to solve what seemed to be a simple problem, was far too long. Despite driving a well relatively spacious Toyota Raum, the driver and patriarch, Rajesh Nauth, like many others, had to leave his vehicle to stretch his legs. His entire family agreed there was a need for an alternate route.

Attorney-at-Law David James was also en route to the city. He too noted that yesterday’s incident pointed to the urgent need for an alternative to the East Bank Public Road.
Many other motorists voiced their opinions as they pointed to the urgent need for another route but in language far too colourful to be published.

The blockage began around 17:00hrs after the driver of an articulated truck, with the insignia of GYSBI, attempted to make a U-turn near the Shell Gas Station at McDoom. He was attempting to access to the Guyana Shore Base operations at Houston, East Bank Demerara. His attempt halted after his trailered rig, leaned right and partially fell off. This stalled the truck and trailer, immediately blocking both lanes on the western side of the carriageway and one of the two on the eastern side.

Calls were placed to the Guyana Police Force and ranks responded quickly to try and maintain some semblance of traffic flow. Gradually traffic slowed to a trickle as employees from GYSBI and nearby establishments, hurried to the scene in efforts to solve the problem. As many began trying to offer advice on how to get the equipment off the trailer, two fork lifts were summoned and after removing the precariously perched equipment, after close to two hours, the traffic resumed.

The buildup stalled traffic as far as Grove, East Bank Demerara to Sheriff Street, Georgetown.
The Government of Guyana, through a loan provided by the Government of India, has entered into an agreement for the estimated US$104,000,000 East Bank – East Coast Road Linkage Project.

Consultant Senior Highway Engineer of RITES Limited, Rajendra Sothwal, recently explained that “the main alignment is four-lane, four connectors are there, one connector is Aubrey Barker, second connector Haag Bosh, the third connector is Mocha Arcadia and the last one is at Great Diamond. The total length of the project is around 25 kilometres and the main alignment is 13.5 kilometres. We propose the four-lane highway’s speed to be around 100 kilometres per hour.” The road will be outfitted with four ground culverts, four steel composite bridges, intersections, sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

Two residential properties at Goedverwagting, 18 at Ogle, nine at Aubrey Barker road, 14 at Mocha and six at Diamond will be affected during execution of the three-phase project. The project implementation has three stages, these are the detail project report preparation, construction supervision, post construction stage-defect liability.

According to the senior highway engineer, the road safety provisions include metal beam barriers, concrete crash barriers, highway lighting, traffic signs, pavement marking, impact attenuators, road studs, pedestrian footpath, cycle tracks and shrub plantation, and in raised median to cut headlight glare.

It is anticipated that the project’s designs will be completed by April and then a few months later – by mid-2019, construction will proceed.