Shal­iza Has­sanali

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day opened the fi­nal phase of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way/Uri­ah But­ler High­way In­ter­change, urg­ing mo­torists not to use the road­way as a drag rac­ing cir­cuit.The cost of the project is es­ti­mat­ed at $721 mil­lion of which $550 mil­lion has al­ready been spent.The in­ter­change rep­re­sents Pack­age C, the fi­nal seg­ment of three phas­es done by main con­trac­tor Vin­ci Con­struc­tion Grand Pro­jets and a con­sor­tium of lo­cal sub con­trac­tors.

The of­fi­cial open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was held at the north bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, near the in­ter­sec­tion and in among those in at­ten­dance Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh.Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the event as an­oth­er mile­stone for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment.The project was fin­ished four months ahead of sched­ule and on Fri­day it took its first test as it stood up to a 6.4 earth­quake.

"It showed it great­est safe­ty with the seis­mic move­ments," Per­sad-Bisses­sar boast­ed. She said she was ho­n­oured to open the in­ter­change in the con­stituen­cy of St Joseph where a by-elec­tion will be held on No­vem­ber 4.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­ter­change will al­le­vi­ate traf­fic con­ges­tion and loss of pro­duc­tive hours with free flow of traf­fic from south to north.

She said the in­ter­change was one of sev­er­al projects the Gov­ern­ment had un­der­tak­en along the east-west cor­ri­dor and list­ed projects from Trinci­ty to Ch­aguara­mas that had been com­mis­sioned and were about to start.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the traf­fic lights at the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way and Uri­ah But­ler High­way in­ter­sec­tion will be de­com­mis­sioned on Oc­to­ber 31.

"This high­way will be con­vert­ed in­to a free­way. There are no traf­fic lights com­ing from Debe as you go straight down Port-of- Spain," she said.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­ter­change was one of largest in­fra­struc­ture projects in T&T and de­clared that coun­try had moved from a "failed state to a grow­ing econ­o­my."