– says President Ali

THE scale and magnitude of ongoing transformational road works are expected to transform the country’s urban centres and improve traffic flow and efficiency in several areas.

This is according to President Dr Irfaan Ali, who made this known as he conducted a site visit to the ongoing project to widen corridors from Conversation Tree to Dennis Street in Georgetown, where he was updated on progress of the works.

During this visit, he explained that this expansion is expected to be a four-lane carriageway, which he added will make it a “mid-town” highway that forms improved interconnection throughout the city.

The Head of State said that this will be incorporated into other projects such as the Ogle to Eccles roadway in its first phase and will create many entry and exit points, all of which will be modern four-lane highways.

“I just want people to understand the magnitude of work that is going on to transform the urban centres, to improve traffic flow and efficiency, and to bring the value of these areas to be enhanced tremendously,” the President said.

The expansion he added comes as the use of internal roads has increased tremendously, as people try to avoid traffic and upgrading these roads will improve commuters safety.

He said the upgrading has a significant social and economic impact on the communities.

The project, which stands at a value of about $1.8 billion, has been divided into two lots, and S. Jagmohan Construction and Kalco Guyana Limited are carrying out the works.

Meanwhile, also on the ground during the site visit was Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar.

Indar stated that contractors working on the project will have to wrap up around August, and as such, the contractors will have to put in extra resources and put in more hours to complete the project around that time.

He said, “So this, when you come from the East Coast and you come to Georgetown, you’re finding that the choke neck is by the Russian Embassy there and by the turn by Sheriff Street, so this was intended to bleed some of the traffic coming from the East Coast into the city.”

This widening project will bleed traffic throughout various surrounding communities, where additional works are also ongoing. He, too, added that the widening project for Conversation Tree to Dennis Street will transform this community and provide better connectivity for commuters.