Ro­han Sinanan

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port

As Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, I wish to re­spond to Dr Rae Fur­longe, Trans­porta­tion Plan­ner and Traf­fic En­gi­neer, re­gard­ing his strong­ly opin­ion­at­ed ar­ti­cle pub­lished in more than one news­pa­per en­ti­tled “The Prob­lem is Bad Ad­vice, Not Lack of Funds”. De­spite my dis­agree­ment with all of his claims, I chose not to re­spond in haste, in­stead pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal­ly sound and com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion for read­ers, in­clu­sive of Dr Fur­longe, to form their own opin­ions.

It is un­for­tu­nate that his ar­ti­cle ap­pears to cast doubt on the com­pe­ten­cy of high­ly skilled and ex­pe­ri­enced tech­nocrats, who con­tin­u­al­ly strive to de­vel­op and im­ple­ment in­fra­struc­tur­al so­lu­tions for the present and fu­ture needs of the coun­try. I can as­sure you that all of the projects un­der the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) are be­ing planned and ex­e­cut­ed with the in­ten­tion of im­prov­ing our na­tion­al road net­work as a path­way to cre­at­ing equal ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ty.

While Dr Fur­longe has an ex­ten­sive pro­fes­sion­al back­ground, his con­clu­sions ap­pear to be skewed due to a lack of in­for­ma­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, he has mis­led the pub­lic on sev­er­al flag­ship in­fra­struc­ture projects of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port via this plat­form. Fur­ther­more, I would not want to think that his in­ten­tion was to weak­en pub­lic con­fi­dence in the com­pe­ten­cy of the pub­lic ser­vice since he ac­quired most of his hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence in this field at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port be­fore ven­tur­ing in­to pri­vate prac­tice to pro­vide paid pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and pri­vate clients.

Here are a few in­ac­cu­ra­cies he doc­u­ment­ed in his pub­lic state­ment that I would like to clar­i­fy.

1. Va­len­cia to To­co High­way project

First­ly, Dr Fur­longe sug­gest­ed that the con­struc­tion of a round­about for the fu­ture Ojoe Con­nec­tor Road to the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way Ex­ten­sion to Man­zanil­la along Va­len­cia Road “does not make sense at this time”. Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. In fact, the on­go­ing up­grade of the Va­len­cia to To­co Road is on­ly Phase 1 of the Va­len­cia to To­co High­way Project, which will pro­vide ac­cess and con­nec­tiv­i­ty to San­gre Grande via the Ojoe Road Ex­ten­sion.

It is pru­dent for the con­struc­tion of the round­about to take place now giv­en the de­vel­op­men­tal plan for the en­tire area. When com­pared to the pro­ject­ed cost, if the Min­istry is re­quired to build this round­about af­ter up­grad­ing the Va­len­cia to To­co Road, the cur­rent cost of de­vel­op­ing this round­about is neg­li­gi­ble. This sim­ply means that if con­struct­ed at a lat­er date, the Min­istry will be re­quired to de­mol­ish and re­con­struct the re­cent­ly up­grad­ed road­way to ac­com­mo­date the round­about. This will be a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey; and for not un­der­tak­ing prop­er se­quen­tial plan­ning, the Min­istry could ex­pect to be se­vere­ly crit­i­cized by pro­fes­sion­als like Dr Fur­longe.

He al­so en­quires whether the “En­vi­ron­men­tal­ists know about this road plan”. I know that this high­ly ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­al is ful­ly aware that be­fore any project is ex­e­cut­ed all statu­to­ry ap­provals are re­quired, in­clud­ing En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) ap­proval. Un­der my stew­ard­ship, all the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments are met be­fore projects com­mence. This project is no ex­cep­tion.

The Morvant to Maritime Roundabout Upgrade Project was executed under the technical guidance of the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency (P.U.R.E.) Unit. The P.U.R.E. Unit was tasked with the design, construction, supervision and management of the project, which was divided into four (4) packages. Extensive works on this Project focused on flood mitigation measures, road rehabilitation, replacement and repair of major pathways, bridges and road infrastructure. Motorists and members of the Morvant, Laventille, San Juan/Barataria communities and environs can enjoy improved movement, improved drainage systems and new sidewalks for the safety of pedestrians.

MINISTRY OF WORKS AND TRANSPAOT FACEBOOK PAGE

2. Cu­mu­to to San­gre Grande High­way

Dr Fur­longe con­sid­ers this project as a “HIGH­WAY TO NOWHERE”. It is rather un­for­tu­nate that he con­sid­ers ar­eas such as San­gre Grande, To­co, Va­len­cia, Cu­mu­to, Ma­yaro, Guaico and Man­zanil­la as “Nowhere”. Those places are re­al, with re­al peo­ple who de­serve equal ac­cess, in­fra­struc­ture, and op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Dr Fur­longe re­counts an ear­li­er op­tion for the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way from Waller­field to Man­zanil­la and en­quires “When did it change?” As with the con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion of projects of this mag­ni­tude, sev­er­al route op­tions were orig­i­nal­ly con­sid­ered for re­view. The route north of Va­len­cia was one of sev­er­al op­tions ini­tial­ly con­sid­ered. Af­ter re-ex­am­i­na­tion and the un­der­tak­ing of a cri­te­ria analy­sis, a de­ci­sion to pro­ceed with the south align­ment was made in 2008. This align­ment was pre­ferred be­cause the:

• Over­all length of the align­ment was short­er;

• Ter­rain along the south­ern align­ment was flat; and

• Over­all con­struc­tion cost was cheap­er.

Thus, the cur­rent south­ern align­ment ranked high­er than the north­ern align­ment.

Dr Fur­longe al­so asks, “How is this seg­ment ex­pect­ed to con­nect to the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way in Waller­field?

To an­swer his ques­tion, the con­struc­tion of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way Ex­ten­sion is be­ing un­der­tak­en in sev­er­al phas­es ac­cord­ing to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the de­sign con­sul­tant and is guid­ed by the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate. Works are on­go­ing on the first phase as rec­om­mend­ed for con­struc­tion. i.e Cu­mu­to to the East­ern Main Road.

Phase 3 of the ex­ten­sion will con­nect the ex­ist­ing Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way at Waller­field to the seg­ments cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion at Cu­mu­to. Phase 3 in­cludes an in­ter­change in Waller­field which will pro­vide ac­cess to the Tamana In­tech Park and ad­ja­cent com­mu­ni­ties, such as Va­len­cia.

Re­gard­ing his ques­tion­ing of the need for four lanes on this project at this time, the de­signs un­der­tak­en in 2005, which were re­viewed in 2018, es­ti­mat­ed that a four-lane road­way would be re­quired based on ex­ist­ing and fu­ture us­age of the road­way, as a re­sult of an­tic­i­pat­ed de­vel­op­men­tal ac­tiv­i­ty in east Trinidad.

3. La­dy Hailes Av­enue

Re­gard­ing the La­dy Hailes Av­enue project, Dr Fur­longe as­serts:

1. The PURE Unit is con­struct­ing a four-lane di­vid­ed car­riage­way high­way;

2. The de­vel­oped world is mov­ing high­ways from their wa­ter­fronts as quot­ed by Wikipedia and Rhein­ufer Prom­e­nade;

3. If a high­way de­vel­op­ment firm is asked to plan land use de­vel­op­ment, they will give you a high­way; and

4. The PURE Unit is de­vel­op­ing a high­way ad­ja­cent to an area with sig­nif­i­cant traf­fic prob­lems which sup­pos­ed­ly fall out­side its scope of work.

In this re­gard, I wish to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that the Min­istry is an im­ple­ment­ing agency for the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front Re­de­vel­op­ment Project, which was con­cep­tu­al­ized and planned by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment. As far as this is con­cerned, the PURE and Coastal Pro­tec­tion Units are cur­rent­ly en­gaged in this mega project.

Sec­ond­ly, the road­way be­ing con­struct­ed along La­dy Hailes Av­enue as part of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front Re­de­vel­op­ment Project is not a high­way. It is un­for­tu­nate that lo­cal­ly, any road­way that is more than one lane is cat­e­go­rized as such. I did not ex­pect Dr Fur­longe to be one of those peo­ple who do so.

It should be not­ed that the max­i­mum speed along La­dy Hailes Av­enue was 50km/h pri­or to con­struc­tion and would re­main the same up­on com­ple­tion. At crit­i­cal lo­ca­tions such as near the hos­pi­tal en­trance, the pro­posed en­trance to the mixed-use de­vel­op­ment, and the en­trance to the wa­ter taxi, speed ta­bles and oth­er traf­fic calm­ing mea­sures will be in­stalled to al­low pedes­tri­ans to cross safe­ly and dis­cour­age dri­ving at high­er speeds. In view of the fore­go­ing, the fi­nal La­dy Hailes Av­enue should not be con­sid­ered a “high­way”.

Fur­ther­more, PURE de­vel­oped a plan to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce traf­fic us­ing traf­fic counts and traf­fic sim­u­la­tions by an ex­ter­nal con­sul­tant. This in­clud­ed the con­struc­tion of Ruth Av­enue Ex­ten­sion, al­low­ing mo­torists to ac­cess the south­bound lanes of Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way from La­dy Hailes Av­enue and by­pass­ing the prob­lem­at­ic Todd’s Street/ Gulf View Link Road sec­tion of La­dy Hailes Av­enue. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, once the project is ful­ly re­al­ized, there will be re­stric­tions to and from Gulf View Link Road un­to La­dy Hailes Av­enue to fur­ther re­duce con­flicts and al­le­vi­ate con­ges­tion. Again, all of the above de­signs have been an­a­lyzed by a third-par­ty con­sul­tant.

4. Mor­vant to Mar­itime

With re­spect to the Movant to Mar­itime project, Dr Fur­longe as­serts that the work un­der­tak­en has di­min­ished the ca­pac­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy of its op­er­a­tions and that the drain cre­at­ed on Fifth Street has caused in­con­ve­nience to ve­hi­cles ex­it­ing Toy­ota Lim­it­ed. It is pru­dent to point out that the scope of the Mar­itime project far ex­ceeds the ar­eas out­lined in the ar­ti­cle and served to pro­vide much-need­ed traf­fic mit­i­ga­tion, as well as drainage so­lu­tions for sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. It is al­so note­wor­thy to add that the Min­istry en­gaged stake­hold­ers pri­or to the start of con­struc­tion, and to date, no con­cerns have been iden­ti­fied by users.

New mea­sures at the round­about are in keep­ing with stan­dard de­sign prac­tices and the Min­istry is cur­rent­ly ex­e­cut­ing post-project sur­veys to mea­sure changes in traf­fic flow. This project was com­mis­sioned on Ju­ly 14, 2022, and tim­ing stud­ies were un­der­tak­en and will con­tin­ue to en­sure the nec­es­sary syn­chronic­i­ty of traf­fic sig­nals. With re­gard to the safe­ty sig­nage re­lat­ed to this new round­about and ac­com­pa­ny­ing road­ways, the same has al­ready been planned and will be in­stalled short­ly.

5. The Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin (SHHEPF)

Dr Fur­longe’s con­cern al­so touched on the con­struc­tion of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin. He raised the fol­low­ing:

1. Why is it nec­es­sary to build all four lanes of the di­vid­ed car­riage­way from Mon De­sir to Point Fortin at this time, as well as all the de­signed in­ter­changes and over­pass­es; and

2. There is a huge need for the con­tin­u­a­tion of the road from Debe to at least Pe­nal as a two-way sin­gle car­riage­way with round­about in­ter­sec­tions in­stead of in­ter­changes.

At this junc­ture, I wish to em­pha­size that the SHHEPF project was con­cep­tu­al­ized in 1996 un­der the Na­tion­al High­way Pro­gramme. This project was de­vised to serve the na­tion as a high­way built to in­ter­na­tion­al free­way stan­dards com­pris­ing sev­er­al seg­ments, with a to­tal length of 47km of four-lane high­way and 2.5km of two-lane high­way (con­nec­tor roads).

The build­out of this four-lane high­way is not re­lat­ed to cur­rent needs on­ly but is di­rect­ly linked to the fu­ture needs of the south­ern penin­su­la. I re­fer to a broad­er plan for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment that will co­in­cide with oth­er projects and ini­tia­tives to de­vel­op the sur­round­ing ar­eas that will be served by the cur­rent con­struc­tion of the four-lane high­way and the planned in­ter­changes.

The MOWT is al­so de­sirous of fur­ther­ing the con­nec­tiv­i­ty of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way from Gol­con­da to Pe­nal. It has al­ready pre­pared two work pack­ages to com­plete all con­struc­tion be­tween Gol­con­da to Su­chit Trace in Pe­nal.

Last­ly, in re­spond­ing to Dr Fur­longe’s ques­tion “why is PURE be­ing en­cour­aged to con­duct al­most all in-house plan­ning, de­sign and project su­per­vi­sion”, I point him to­ward the over­all vi­sion of the Min­istry. It is to “serve as an ef­fi­cient, ef­fec­tive, in­no­v­a­tive, client-ori­ent­ed or­ga­ni­za­tion geared to­ward the pro­vi­sion of safe, high-qual­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture and an in­te­grat­ed trans­porta­tion sys­tem that meet the needs of Trinidad and To­ba­go

In seek­ing to de­liv­er this ob­jec­tive, the Min­istry is seek­ing to build the in­ter­nal ca­pac­i­ty of all Units, Pro­grammes and Di­vi­sions to op­er­ate in a more au­tonomous fash­ion.

Re­gard­ing the Min­istry’s en­tire high­way in­fra­struc­ture agen­da, our projects have been guid­ed by the Na­tion­al High­way Pro­gramme of 1996. This plan was de­vel­oped in con­junc­tion with the In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and while the Min­istry may mod­i­fy some el­e­ments to adapt to so­ci­etal changes, its ac­tions con­tin­u­al­ly re­main aligned with the strate­gic di­rec­tion of the State’s Vi­sion 2030 Plan. Tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion all of the pro­posed man­dates, the Min­istry will con­tin­ue to press ahead work­ing strate­gi­cal­ly, while bear­ing in mind the bet­ter­ment of the na­tion for the present and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Al­though there will al­ways be dif­fer­ences in ap­proach, the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port will re­main open to lis­ten­ing to prac­ti­tion­ers in the field and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the meet­ing of minds with the goal of mov­ing the coun­try for­ward. I am sure that Dr Fur­longe, as a for­mer pro­fes­sion­al prac­ti­tion­er in the pub­lic ser­vice, wrote his ar­ti­cle with the best of in­ten­tions geared to­ward the greater na­tion­al good, and I stand ready to fa­cil­i­tate open and hon­est di­a­logue with him in the near fu­ture.