SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Over the next three months, mo­torists us­ing the Mor­vant junc­tion in Barataria will have to utilise a tem­po­rary Bai­ley bridge, as con­trac­tors for the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port be­gin to de­mol­ish and re­build the ex­ist­ing bridge as part of the Mor­vant to Mar­itime Round­about Up­grade Project.

Yes­ter­day, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan was present to an­nounce the tem­po­rary mea­sure, ap­peal­ing to cit­i­zens to be pa­tient.

He said the $48 mil­lion project, start­ed in Au­gust 2020, will al­le­vi­ate two ma­jor is­sues in the area - flood­ing and traf­fic con­ges­tion.

“What we ex­pect com­ing out of this project is a much smoother flow of traf­fic in the Mor­vant junc­tion area in some ar­eas you will have as many as sev­en lanes of traf­fic flow­ing at any one time. But more im­por­tant­ly, a sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in the drainage in the area, a lot of work went in­to stream­lin­ing the drainage be­cause this area was prone to flood­ing. It didn’t take much to flood out this Barataria area, and one of the rea­sons for that was a lack of prop­er drainage,” Sinanan said.

He said the height of the ex­ist­ing bridge was al­so an is­sue as it pre­vent­ed the free flow of wa­ter, caus­ing wa­ter to back up as far back as San Juan when­ev­er it rains heav­i­ly.

“With a new bridge you can ex­pect a much larg­er flow of the wa­ter­course, that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly help the traf­fic and the wa­ter flow in this area. This morn­ing we just want to ask the mo­torists, we know there will cer­tain­ly be some in­con­ve­nience be­cause you are com­ing off the orig­i­nal road on­to a tem­po­rary Bai­ley bridge, we es­ti­mate this to last for the next three months.”

Sinanan said the up­grade project had been split in­to three pack­ages and award­ed to three dif­fer­ent lo­cal con­trac­tors­—Coos­al’s, Ju­nior Sam­my and Carib As­phalt.

He said res­i­dents along the East­ern Main Road had been giv­en work dur­ing the project.