By John Myers Jr., Staff ReporterOPPOSITION IS mounting in parts of Portmore, St. Catherine against plans to charge a toll for travel on the soon to be built high-speed six-lane bridge which is to replace the existing Causeway bridge.
At a public meeting earlier this week at the Portmore Missionary Church to outline the changes and the impact associated with the development on the municipality, residents protested against paying the toll, after it was revealed that motorists would be required to pay a minimum $65 to travel across the bridge.
AGAINST THEIR WILL
The residents who attended the meeting, complained that the new development, which forms part of the Government's multi-billion Highway 2000 project, was being imposed on them against their will.
"The very first meeting I went to with regard to Highway 2000 ...the question was asked whether Portmore people would be required to pay a toll and the answer was that with Portmore being a dormitory community, we would not be required to pay a toll to leave and enter our bedrooms," argued one irate resident. "Now I come here tonight and hear a totally different story."
George Lee, Mayor of the Portmore municipality, in distancing himself from the development, said the Council was not a party to the plans. "With respect to what Highway 2000 is doing, I cannot speak to it because the municipality of Portmore has not been involved in any aspect of that operation, unfortunately," he remarked when asked to comment by the residents.
But amidst the opposition, Trevor Jackson, managing director of TransJamaican Highway Limited (THL), a subsidiary of the highway developer, Bouygues Travaux Publics, said it was unlikely that the highway operators will back down. He said the charges were arrived at based on a complicated formula.
"It's done on a complicated formula dependent on the movement of the Jamaican dollar versus the U.S. dollar. It could be more, it could be less," Mr. Jackson said.
He added that "there is little room (for change) and we have confidence in the consultants that have been used, they are the best in the world and they haven't been proven wrong too many times."
