Need to stop choking our capital

When US President Dwight Eisenhower in the fifties launched 40,000 miles of interstate highways replete with overpasses and interchanges, America moved into the fast lane of growth and development that has accelerated over the past half century. Other countries in our bustling growing world quickly followed up with their own highway networks that endorse the key importance of rapid surface transportation by motor vehicles. Nearby Venezuela built the spectacular Autopista from Maiquetia to Caracas with splendid ribbons going to Maracay, Valencia, Carabobo and beyond, indeed everywhere. In mountainous Switzerland, multi-lanes soar over yawning valleys and shoot along high ridges. Germany continued its autobahns; Italy created high speed artistry with autostrades; and even staid Britain bent to the inevitable and built motorways. Trinidad and Tobago learnt the lesson on its own — access equals success. Result: the north-south highway, and highway connection up to Arima. But will these suffice for developed nation status? They don’t even manage in 2004, much less in the decades ahead. If we don’t quickly rationalise and increase our highway and road networks, TT will end up being a thick callaloo of confusion in a pot going nowhere.

The main challenges:
Our populous Northern Range valleys support tens of thousands plying narrow, ancient roads that have long become clogged “tributaries” of human traffic. Maraval continues to attract housing starts. Saddle Road also serves Maracas Bay, and as for east as Blanchisseuse, as well as Santa Cruz. Widening Saddle Road into four lanes is now an impossibility. Two alternative lanes are urgently needed and like Venezuela and Switzerland, the only location for them is the hills, starting near Lady Chancellor, and coming down before Moka, with strategic connections to the Saddle Road. New highway access is also a matter of great urgency for San Juan/Santa Cruz and Maracas, St Joseph. Coming into the orbit of medium-term attention is Lopinot, while the miserable and dangerous track known as the Blanchisseuse Road from Arima could do with at least a two-metre widening. As for Chaguaramas, it’s a combination of peninsula and valley (Macqueripe). A primitive track (the Western Main Road) services the area. The two most likely solutions are construction of a coastal highway, or extension of the Diego Martin Highway over or through Covigne. Stamp “necessity” all over this one.

How can the North Coast Road to Maracas Bay be improved? It could be widened. Experts will tell whether this is more economical/efficient, than taking a new roadway inspired by the old bridle track from Santa Cruz. Hopefully, Maracas Valley will be spared as an access to the north coast. All of the “tributaries” east of Port-of-Spain link up with the CR Highway. Its dualling from Arima to Sangre Grande, a dream of many administrations, is of course, considerably overdue. The Amerindian track between Sangre Grande, and Toco, could do with two metres of added width. The east-west flow, however, is headed for asphysia if a series of overpasses, and at least one interchange, are not installed, soonest. The new network and the natural growth in traffic, plus the demographic trends, would put heavy pressure on the north-south link. A developed-nation approach calls for an immediate action plan to add two more lanes, to make Butler/Hochoy a six-lane highway ... with four leading from the recent splendid extension servicing La Romaine, to Point Fortin. One can hardly do less for one of the world’s largest LNG ports and its satellite population, services, etc. The much-proclaimed Mayaro highway from San Fernando is anxiously awaited, a boom for pleasure-seekers and business, as it should give access to beach and industry. In this latter context, the existing Mayaro Main Road from St Joseph’s Village to the Point Galeota energy hub is totally inadequate to present, and moreso, future needs and developments.

The clear choice: a new, inland, four-lane highway from the proposed Mayaro highway, in the region of Mafeking, south to Pt Galeota. One of the country’s main engines of growth and development is Point Lisas — big, and getting bigger. It also has one of the nation’s major seaports. It could even overtake the port in the capital city. Too much is even now going on to be serviced by the existing narrow two lanes winding through the canefields from the Hochoy Highway. Four lanes are desperately needed, not to forget an overpass at the roundabout where the link road and the Old Southern Main Road “collide.” Finally, Wrightson Road in Port-of-Spain is fast approaching the point where in desperation, it will have to be reduced from hours of stalled traffic arising from major port expansion currently being pursued with zeal and zest. The upshot is that Wrightson Road must be either altered into a two-level expressway, between Beetham and French Street or between Beetham and Ajax Street. The alternative is a coastal beltway. Port development at Sea Lots will help, but not solve Wrightson congestion. A capital choked off at the collar would hardly be a preference! Or a country, for that matter!