Impossible to fix every road at same time

In the first case, it is apparent that most people in Trinidad simply don’t know, nor do some people even want to be told, that the Ministry of Works and Transport has no direct responsibility for local roads or secondary roads, and whenever they see the Ministry paving the main roads and highways in the country, they immediately demand that their neighbourhood roads be paved as well.

The fact that all of these back roads are the direct responsibility of the various local government corporations and not the Ministry of Works and Transport, apparently makes no difference, and the only conclusion that I can draw is that some of the local government bodies are so slow to respond, that in many instances people just can’t be bothered to demand performance from some of these local agencies.

Hopefully, this will all change with the Local Government Reform process that is now underway, but in the interim, the Ministry of Works and Transport is helping out by paving many local roads that are not under our jurisdiction, and we will continue to do so, but our primary responsibility is still restricted to main roads and highways.

With respect to the actual paving work itself, it is clear that there is insufficient appreciation of the need for preventative maintenance in Trinidad and Tobago, and the need to be proactive in our road repair and rehabilitation programme.

Many people just don’t appear to understand that asphalt paving under heavy use has a limited lifespan of about 10 to 15 years, because of a number of factors, including wear and tear caused by the abrasion of vehicle tyres, evaporation of light oils from the bitumen in the asphalt, fatigue and axle loads, and, therefore, the surfaces of main roads must be replaced on a planned basis.

Further, the time to do preventative maintenance on heavily travelled roads is when the first signs of cracking or creeping of the asphalt appear, and not when the road surface is about to collapse or disintegrate.

COLM IMBERT

Minister of Works and Transport