A question of road reserves

In the past 40 years, more and more people have built homes in Fondes Amandes. Some homes are palatial and up-market, some are more modest, some are humble — but none were built on what became a mini-park, that narrow strip of grass where trees border the edge of the ravine.

As more people came to live in Fondes Amandes, more cars transporting more people travelled up and down that road. Men, women and children without their own transport dodged the traffic as best they could, hanging on to the rails when cars coming from opposite directions met in the middle of the long bridge, spanning the junction of the Fondes Amandes and the St Ann’s River.

There was but one island, one refuge for pedestrians along the length of the Fondes Amandes road — the narrow strip of grass on the edge of the ravine. Motorists and pedestrians alike enjoyed that strip of green, of tall trees shading the road and the mini-park.

Today the trees are going, going, probably all gone by the time you read this. Soon the grass will be ripped up by backhoes or bulldozers.

The new owner of that narrow strip is, as these photographs show, preparing to take advantage of that 40-year-old permission to build, to replace the mini-park with concrete, to build retaining walls along the ravine . . . one wonders, has he seen what happens when flash floods sweep down the ravine?

More to the point, however, will he leave a reserve at the edge of the road, a pavement, or strip of grass where children on their way to and from school can walk in safety as cars drive up and down that road? Maybe he will. Maybe, like many other homeowners here and elsewhere, he won’t.

And will — could — the Highways Division erect a pedestrian walkway across the bridge, still showing signs of damage from the disastrous flood of 1993? Or are the powers all too entranced with vision of the Cricket World Cup to set a few dollars aside to safeguard the lives of those who must walk the Fondes Amandes Bridge every day of life?