THE EDITOR, Sir:
IN MY letter of September 17 last, I pointed out the danger of having no suitable alternative to entering the city of Kingston from the Spanish Town end outside of the Mandela Highway. We have now seen what an act of nature can do to road systems and anyone travelling the Mandela route since the passage of Hurricane Wilma can attest to the difficulties of such a route.
What if there were an emergency that requires immediate medical attention in Kingston? The cost to the country in man-hours, fuel and loss of business because of the dependence on the Mandela Highway, must add up to millions of dollars.
It is now evident that serious consideration ought to be given to reopening the railway for passenger service from Linstead and May Pen to Kingston. In many European cities, the use of cars is discouraged in city centres. In Vienna, for example, cars can be parked at certain areas and bicycle rental services are provided as an alternative to public transport to the city centres.
Fords:
There are two small but potentially dangerous fords just east of Bull Bay which need to be bridged. So are those at Cassia Park and other gullies in Kingston. Lives have been lost in the past and only recently, a teacher was fortunate to come out alive after his car was washed away at Bull Bay.
'BUSHING' OF ROADS
It is a waste of taxpayers money to 'bush' the sides of roads without removing the soil which has washed down from the banks. Many roads are not provided with sidewalks and pedestrians, especially children, are forced to walk in the roads endangering themselves.
There is reason to believe that many of our older roads were not determined by surveyors, but evolved over the years from cattle tracks to their present state.
UNNECESSARY CURVES
The numerous seemingly unnecessary curves appear to support this theory. In modern times we use marl to build road bases, wipe a thin layer of asphalt over that, then roll with an eight-ton roller and within a short time 40-ton trucks are driven over them. Shortly thereafter, the corrugations and potholes create the perfect conditions for rain damage.
In Jamaica, we use asphalt very sparingly in comparison to other countries. Our roads need to be constructed for the vehicles of the present and the future and not as we are doing now for the conditions of the past. The country would be better off in the long run to construct fewer roads each year and do them well rather than trying to do all at once and do a poor job.
ALTERNATIVE FUEL
A few years ago the late Mr. Noel Smith, an engineer with Seprod, converted his car to run on LPG (cooking gas). He assured me that the car's performance was good and the mileage was better than with gasolene. I don't know if anyone else has continued that experiment.
I am, etc.,
TREVOR SAMUELS
tsamuels@N5.com
Lors Road, Kingston 5
