Highway One’s job one for road fix

Highway One and other West Coast roads are in line for major infrastructure upgrades soon as Government continues its road network upgrade programme, Minister of Transport, Works and Maintenance Dr William Duguid promised today.

He made the announcement following a brief inspection of a section of Rendezvous Hill,  Christ Church, where major road works began this week due to rocks falling off a section of the cliff.

Dr Duguid pointed out that work on the area would take a few more days than expected, explaining that after specialists inspected the area they found that several trees with large roots had penetrated the rocks, causing boulders to break.

He said officials would now use the opportunity to widen the road and provide a footpath for pedestrians.

Officials are hoping Rendezvous Road will reopen on Monday.

Dr Duguid said: “Once the road is completed we are going to bring in a street sweeper to sweep the road, have the road fully washed down and put it back in service midday on Monday.

“So it is going to be closed to vehicular traffic till midday.

“We are asking the people of Barbados to bear with us but we have to make the roads safe because it was an accident waiting to happen.

“We can’t let those things persist.

“We have to take action in advance and make sure we make these roads safe to the people of Barbados.”

Duguid gave the assurance that Government was continuing apace with its road repair programme as evident in several areas.

He declared: “The sad thing is that for ten years very few roads were done in Barbados and we are now playing catch up.

“So we are playing catch up but we are going to get there.”

The money that has been allocated by the Ministry of Finance for the repairs would be “stretched to get as many roads done as quickly as we can for the people”, the Minister said.

Dr Duguid said special attention would also be given to the road network on the West Coast, adding that major road works there should start in another three weeks and would last for about six months.

“What I can tell you is that we have already issued some letters of invitation for contractors to come back to us to do Highway one. We will be doing it from the bottom of the university hill at the roundabout all the way up to the church in Holetown,” he said.

Explaining that that road network was a lot more complex, Dr Duguid said the water mains would be removed and a set of natural gas pipelines were to be added, and this could take some time.

He said: “We are going to be talking the country through the problems because we are going to have diversions and difficulties, but we are going to do the majority of the work at night, which means the inconvenience would be reduced.

“Once we trench it and get the old water mains out we are also looking if possible to get all the electrical structure underground as well.

“So it is going to be a lot of major trenching.

“There will be some disruption and I am asking the people of Barbados to bear with us.”

After Highway One is completed, the project will then be shifted to Highway Seven for similar upgrades.

“So a lot of road work is to be done, a lot of infrastructure to be put in. We have a very ambitious plan and we are going to press ahead and get it done,” said Dr Duguid.