Christiana Bypass the high-cost road

Earlier this year I wrote about the need for accountability with regard to the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP).  The recent uproar about the Christiana bypass has proven my point and I am sure that as the work continues other concerns will arise about other roads.  I am glad therefore to hear the prime minister’s announcement about the hiring of an independent consultant to review the work done on each project.

It is my intention to bring a voice of reason to a situation whereby many persons have responded to this project from an emotional perspective rather than a development perspective.  In planning for the development of the country it is important to consider the road infrastructure that one will need.  One only has to look at many of our formally smaller towns to see the problem.  Spanish town is a prime example of this as there is no facility to improve the road infrastructure there.  May Pen, Old Harbour, Spaldings, Savanna-La-Mar, Montego Bay are other communities that are experiencing growth in population with limited opportunities to improve the road network.

One only has to think of Portmore whereby permission was given to construct tens of thousands of houses without giving sufficient regard to the road infrastructure.  Ultimately this led to the development of the “toll road” which deprived the citizens of their right to “freely” leave their community.  If a forward thinking approach had been used it might have been suggested that the developer should have paid for or made a significant contribution to the expansion of the causeway road thus eliminating the toll.

Montego Bay has had to build roads outside of downtown in order to reduce the traffic congestion in the city.  The May Pen, Morant Bay, Duncans and Falmouth bypasses are other examples of such roads.  The Spanish town bypass on the other hand is one that does not work anymore because it no longer operates as a bypass because many roads feed in to it.  There are many towns that need road improvements and one must consider future development when assessing that need. 

When no consideration is given to infrastructure development the cost to rectify it later is significantly higher.  In Kingston; a major example of this is the expansion of Dunrobin Avenue/Washington Boulevard to four lanes.  The road length is about two and a half kilometres involving the construction of a fly over and will cost many times what the Christiana leg will cost yet there has been acceptance of this project.  Is the noise because the road is in the rural area and we do not think that they deserve such a road or is because it is in Mike Henry’s constituency and we are playing politics.

I am not suggesting that we can’t question it but rather how we question it.  If one thinks that one can win an election by constructing a road in a community then one does not credit the Jamaican voter with much intelligence.