SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to fast track con­struc­tion of three in­ter­changes in east Trinidad to help fur­ther al­le­vi­ate traf­fic woes faced dai­ly by mo­torists.

Plans are afoot to build in­ter­changes at Trinci­ty, Pi­ar­co/Gold­en Grove and Ma­coya by 2022.

News of the in­ter­changes came from Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan four days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley opened the $221 mil­lion Curepe In­ter­change.

Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia that the Curepe In­ter­change was sup­posed to be built by the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010 and 2012, while Ma­coya In­ter­change was ex­pect­ed to start short­ly af­ter.

Sinanan said this nev­er hap­pened be­cause of wrang­ings be­tween two UNC min­is­ters over which con­trac­tor should have been award­ed the mil­lion dol­lar con­tract for the Curepe In­ter­change.

This re­sult­ed in the project be­ing de­layed by sev­er­al years.

“It al­so caused con­struc­tion on the oth­er in­ter­changes in the East to be put on hold.”

Up­on as­sum­ing of­fice in 2015, Sinanan said the PNM-led Gov­ern­ment re-ten­dered the Curepe In­ter­change project in 2017 and it was de­liv­ered ear­li­er this year.

Now, he said the Gov­ern­ment was eye­ing con­struc­tion of three new in­ter­changes.

In Sep­tem­ber, Sinanan said a ten­der will be award­ed “for the de­sign build” of the Ma­coya In­ter­change and they will fast track con­struc­tion of the Trinci­ty and Gold­en Grove/Pi­ar­co In­ter­changes which should be com­plet­ed by the end of 2022.

He said the con­tract for Ma­coya will be award­ed by the end of this year with work to be­gin in Jan­u­ary 2021.

“It could be done if politi­cians do not in­ter­fere with the process. We will do it the right way us­ing the tem­plate from the Curepe In­ter­change. We an­tic­i­pate that by 2022 we should be able to dri­ve from Port-of-Spain to at least Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port with­out any in­ter­rup­tions on the road net­work.”

Con­struc­tion of the Ma­coya In­ter­change will see the re­moval of the UWI, Pasea and Ma­coya traf­fic lights to en­sure a smooth flow of ve­hi­cles.

Sinanan said it was the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy to re­move all traf­fic lights from Port-of-Spain to San­gre Grande.

He said, “The last ma­jor in­ter­sec­tion we have is Tumpuna Road in Ari­ma. From Tumpuna we have the Cu­mu­to to San­gre Grande High­way which was de­signed with no lights. So it would be smooth sail­ing.”

So far, the min­istry has put out a ten­der for a con­sul­tant to un­der­take a traf­fic study and to come up with con­cep­tu­al de­signs for the in­ter­changes.

Asked if the three in­ter­changes will be built at the same time, Sinanan said he was await­ing feed­back from the traf­fic study to de­ter­mine if it would be fea­si­ble to do.

“We want to fast track build­ing the in­ter­changes and have them done by 2022.”

He said the in­ter­changes will be built on green fields sites and would cost far less than the Curepe In­ter­change.

“So we do not an­tic­i­pate any land ac­qui­si­tion or dis­lo­ca­tion of home­own­ers and busi­ness­es. What we have done in Curepe is set the bench­mark for pric­ing of these in­ter­changes.”

Sinanan said fund­ing for the new road net­work will be se­cured by the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

“The Gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied the con­struc­tion sec­tor as a ma­jor sec­tor to stim­u­late the econ­o­my.”