Peter EspeutLAST WEEK, on my way home, I got caught in a huge mile-long traffic jam near the Clarendon end of the Old Harbour bypass. After an hour of waiting and inching forward, I discovered that the cause was a four-car pile-up, with a woman dead lying in the road beside her car. The police quite properly had blocked off the road as they took their measurements. No traffic passed there for several hours.
Literally hundreds of cars were forced to turn around and retrace their steps along the soon-to-be toll road. But all the trucks were forced to wait it out to the bitter end because the new highway is too narrow for them to make a three-point (or even a 10-point) turn. They must have found it inconvenient.
Those cars which turned around, found that they could not easily exit to the Old Harbour Road. There is no longer any eastbound exit at the so-called "Freetown Interchange"; it has been removed to herd motorists towards the toll plaza to the east. How inconvenient! Luckily, the newly-erected gate at the so-called "Old Harbour Interchange" was open so that cars could exit to the town of Old Harbour, and so continue westward. Once tolling begins, that gate will be shut. In a similar situation, will vehicles have to drive right back to the toll plaza and pay another toll to get off the toll road, to be able to take the old road west? That will be most inconvenient!
MOST INCONVENIENT
What will happen when the full length from the Causeway Bridge to Williamsfield (in this phase) is open? How many toll plazas will there be? Will those who enter from Kingston or Williamsfield have to drive all the way to the Vineyards before they pay? It certainly seems so; the present location of the toll plaza blocks the highway from end-to-end. Will they block off all the exits at the "interchanges" before the toll plazas? This means that, travelling from Kingston to Innswood or Williamsfield to Old Harbour, if you want to use the toll road you will have to pass your destination, pay your toll and retrace your steps. It is going to be most inconvenient!
I wonder about the level of forward planning which has gone into this road. Will they have to demolish this expensive toll plaza in the middle of the road later on? What a waste of good money if that is the plan! A better location for the toll plaza would have been on the ramp to enter the highway, so as not to block the flow of traffic coming through from Kingston.
Not yet two years old is the lovely flyover bridge at the Bushy Park entrance to the bypass, which the Jamaican government borrowed tens of millions of dollars (from Kuwait) to construct, which loan we are still repaying. Judging by the alignment of the highway extension towards Kingston, that beautiful (and expensive) flyover bridge will have to be demolished! Now, is this a waste of taxpayers money or what? At the time Highway 2000 was announced, that bridge had not yet been built. Once the decision for Highway 2000 had been made, could not the bypass have been re-designed to avoid demolishing a perfectly good new bridge, wasting good money? Shame!
With this level of forward planning, I wonder how ready the authorities are for all eventualities on this new toll road? Once you enter, it is almost like you are in a tunnel. There is a narrow hard shoulder between the road and the rails or ditch, enough for a small car maybe, but certainly not wide enough for a truck to stop without obstructing traffic; and trucks will have to stop for flat tyres and other malfunctions. Pull over and open your door and the 110 kph traffic is likely to knock it off! This kind of narrow high-speed highway is made for multiple car pileups; the one mentioned above is the second four-car accident I have personally seen in a month. I am sure it won't be my last.
SHORT-CHANGED
The advertisements for this new toll road state that it is built to International Standards. If that is true, then International Standards are very low. I find the road surface on the (south) side built by the Kuwaiti firm to be smooth, and the (north) side built by the French firm to be uneven and pitchy-patchy, as if it has been dug-up and relaid several times. You can both feel it and see it! On more than one occasion, I have toured the south of France by rented car, and none of the roads I drove on not even in the remote mountainous Canton of Auriac in the Aude were as rough as this. I believe that we are being short-changed and overcharged.
I wish them good luck with their easy-to-cut-and-steal wire fences and the stray (and non-stray) animals (which have lessened but not disappeared). Will the toll authorities be liable if some car hits a stray animal at 110 kph?
Any bets on how long it will be before this super-highway becomes the prime target for a disgruntled citizens' group wanting to block a road to make a point?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and executive director of an environment and development NGO.
