Private sector called on to landscape road
Linford Pierson Highway
(CNS): The planning minister has said that the private sector will take care of the landscaping along the new Linford Pierson Highway expansion but government has no plans to plant trees, shrubs, hedges or bush around the new road. The original natural landscape has been left along the sides of parts of the newly expanded highway, but the wide median and a roundabout, all of which could be landscaped to create shade, soak up emissions and offer some relief from the concrete, are devoid of greenery. Joey Hew said it is down to local companies to adopt the road if there are to be any trees, and he believes there is a demand.
“The medians and the roundabouts are in great demand by the private sector and the NRA board is now talking to a few groups …who are interested in adopting them,” he told CNS at the opening of the new highway. He said it would be good to see the road nicely planted in the near future.
Hew said that the environment is now a significant consideration when building roads, as the law requires an environmental impact assessment to be carried out before a highway is constructed, which in this case had resulted in the Linford Pierson Highway being raised to mitigate flooding.
The North Sound Estates is an example of where older roads are now facing significant problems from seawater infiltration. But Hew said that the NRA was examining that situation and he believed that there was an engineering solution to the problem caused by developing on such low-lying land.
The minister said he was aware of the need to rethink road building and some of the planning regulations to adapt to environmental challenges. He said the National Development Plan was under review and he would like to see setbacks pushed further back to vegetation lines.
But when it comes to roads, he said there was less and less space and he wants to see solutions other than building more of them. More people need to use bicycles or to carpool, he said, and he wants to see a comprehensive review of public transport.
“We can’t just keep building roads,” he added.
Linford Pierson Highway roundabout
Category: development, Local News
With the construction of the new highways, I wonder if the designers, engineers or administrative powers-that-be ever considered the danger posed by sections of highway which are elevated above parallel sections of the opposite lanes? This design “feature” increases the chance for a vehicle to “launch” off the higher section and land on the top, or shear-off the top of a vehicle in the opposite lane – making for a more deadly accident scenario. Are they going to install barriers along those sections??!!
Morons in charge!!
Because the landscaping of the road is sooooooooo important and life threatening that is needs to be done with such urgency. WOW..its more of a ‘want’ not a need. Not completely disagreeing that the maintenance and beautification is not needed..but..I’m honestly tired of the road ‘put down’ to only be ‘torn up’ to be ‘put down’ again..get it right one time and done…. and I have witnessed the landscaping…they place cones in bad locations or in spots giving too much of a short notice to drivers further blocking the access/lanes that were created to rid us of the traffic congestion to begin with? Completely pointless.
What about seeking to have safety of both drivers and pedestrians? Regardless of the countless incidents, they continue to run, or take their sweet time crossing these 40mph+ roads.. Find a solution to that.
@7:49 agree with you 100%. Seems like every week large stretches of the West Bay by-pass is coned off for lawn cutting, weeding and pruning putting workers and drivers at risk as well as turning two lanes into one. Why not not just fill the medians with gravel and avoid all this nonsense. What happened to common sense? Madness!
Yeah gravel is really going to add to the beautification of Cayman, brilliant solution. Why don’t we cut down all plants on the Island and gravel them over? And FYI, weeds still come through gravel.
Not disagreeing with landscaping the roundabouts but plants down the middle of the roads while looks nice makes little sense. The roads are being widened and leans added to make traffic flow more efficient and safer. Hope you enjoy it when they start coning off leans for maintenance every week.
BTY if done properly with underlay, weeds will not easily grow through to the gravel and certainly will be easier to control but I don’t expect you to understand that.
Agreed.
We need more greenery NOT gravel unless you sell aggregate.
The more sensible alternative is to have the roadside grass cutting, tree pruning, etc done when the traffic is at a minimum.
Bikes would be lovely if you didn’t risk dying every time you rode one here. Landscaping would be nice but it’ll be 3 people working and 12 watching of the government did it. Who will get this contract that is in governments back pocket.
Landscaping is cheap, like maybe tens of thoussands. Do you know what’s not cheap? Laying out a couple miles of curbing before the road is leveled and paved, tearing it up to re-do, haphazardly piling rolling hills of abandoned aggregate, and same with miles of unnecessary and duplicated asphalting – which in the end, is still not level. Those mistakes add up to millions in wasted public cash. The landscaping by contrast amounts to a mere rounding error of the other mistakes!
Exactly! How many times are they going to tear up a recently paved road? They’ve basically redone the entire easterly tibbits from the dump to al t roundabout twice!
If the roads were bicycle friendly I’d be out there. But they’re not! And many people seem resentful of cyclists. I had a guy get so close his wing mirror hit my handle bar. I’ve also had something thrown out the window at me by a passing jeep.
I’ll stick with my car for now.
Thanks Caymankind.
In another news item about completed roads they said that pedestrian crosswalks would be added later. Unfortunately the government learned little from the pedestrian fatality last year.
Observation- Road 10.4 Mil – No landscaping
School- 120 Mil- No Field or backup Generation
Doing a rail system that run over the existing roads, Philippines & Singapore & China has it, and it works well!! Bracka
Any idea how many people traveling per day is needed to cover the cost of a light rail system?
This would be *very* light rail, you understand. More like a rollercoaster really.
Keep your mouth close and you would be thought a fool, open your mouth and remove all doubt. So tired of these feel good nonsense speak with no substance. Did he even listen to himself?
Great, the National Development Plan is under review. So about beach access, will there also be setbacks pushed back to vegetation lines as they once were to allow public enjoyment?.
Landscaping the road is a dumb idea -your headline therefore hangs apart from your story.
In addition, I expect that the Minster was speaking not just of the private sector (defined as businesses) BUT also of civic society (inclusive of service clubs, gardening associations, etc).
We should have roadside statues of our magnificient “foweva ‘onerable” politicos to aim at and alleviate the boredom.
Native Trees, Trees, Trees!
Nothing more!
No ugly monuments!
Thank You
The monuments are for target practice not to look at! 🙂
Ok so landscaping the roundabouts – I have called NRA several times in regards to two roundabouts as I had a company lined up who was interested in landscaping one of them and every time I have been told they are already working with someone on it. Years later, those roundabouts are still not landscaped.
Plant trees – not shrubs, bush and hedgings!
Put some fruit trees while your at it like mangoes, guinep, maringa, guava, et cetera. Feed our parrots. The iguanas are eating everything.
PLEASE … NO PALM TREES !
Fruit trees, mangos, marijuana, guava..
Right there with ya buddy. Would be nice besides the fruit falling into the road.
I agree with you Mr. Hew, but unlike you I am afraid I am unable to do anything about it.
So which minister now owns a landscaping company? Hats going to be a fat contract for someone.
We have gotten too spoiled with having our own car, myself included. But I have had to carpool with my husband for a few months and it was manageable. It just took a little more organizing myself from the night before, which actually worked better for me in the long run- a lot less rushing in the mornings.
Probably atvlot less gasoline to .
I seriously think families that don’t car pool are the biggest contributors to the traffic.. Double the lanes yea but still double the amount of cars on the road. I gee ya a bly if one of you working GT and the other up east though.
Carpooling can only work for family that are working in the same district and start the same time.
Say what?
Why do you have to start work at the same time and live in the same district in order to carpool?
Ever heard of waiting 1 hour to save 2 AND (with the exception of west bay) all other Grand Cayman Districts are connected by1 road!
Strange thinking on this chat board.
SMH
More words of wisdom from this minister.
Joey Who?
Seriously Joey? That’s a real third world approach. Why not use some of the Environmental Fund money to plant indigenous trees in these areas? Leaving it to the private sector will result in patchy landscaping at best. I guess you are going to leave it to the private sector to maintain it as well. Complete lack of vision IMHO. With this approach, all of Cayman will end up looking like Marina Drive one day.
In order to get more people riding bicycles major efforts will be need improve road safety. To many cars and motorcycles drive in the bike lanes making it very dangerous to use them.
Need bollards at the entry and exit of every roundabout with a dedicated bike lane. Also need the bike lanes to not end arbitrarily in a curb or choke point – eg. the “Britannia” Roundabout. Who is the person that signed-off on this stuff?
As long as the traffic increases every you will need to continue to build roads.
Oh, so after we have build multiple roads on the western side of the island, he going to now talk about building roads aren’t the answer??!!!
Well hell, we in the eastern districts would settle for ONE PROPER ROAD Mr. Hew!!!!!
12:17, sorry to say, this government don’t give two hoots about you all up there! Locals.
“We can’t just keep building roads,” he added.
Build us a Monorail! – it worked for Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook
Springfield?
Disney World?
Use bicycle on those roads, are you kidding me Mr. Hew ?
Yeah, like he riding one.
NRA, never knowingly completely finish a job…
“More people need to use bicycles…” When I see Joey Hew riding a bicycle to work I’ll consider that.
With his wife and children!!!!!
People don’t use bicycles minister because driving standards are appalling, there are no protected cycle lanes and its just too dangerous. They don’t use public transport as there is none worth that name – good luck with your review – we’re not holding our breath.
PS Whilst you’re at it; sort out the rip-off taxis will you? How difficult is it to require proper meters to be fitted – like every other county in the world?
Yep, even Bermuda fixed that one…
We need something to look at while stuck in a traffic jam trying to get through Hurley’s roundabout.
I used to be nicely distracted watching the Tv’s at Hurleys roundabout. Did someone not pay the cable bill?
Landscaping is great and all, but how about some cable barriers on the medians to avoid head on collisions?!
On the Harquail Bypass the lanes are even elevated above each other in bends where if you jump the curb you are going head on through a windshield of oncoming traffic. Just shocking how simple road safety is overlooked by the NRA.
these new roads were not build for drunk fools jumping curbs
Well, unfortunately that’s extremely shortsighted, since we have those in abundance, and they do kill innocents and irreparably change the lives for many families. Where are the compassionate grown ups with a mind for protecting those innocent victims? The people that are supposed to be career road building professionals, are building launch ramps into their windshields! One car already went off and into a grader before the opposite lane was even paved!
Armco on the upper flight deck bend – at a minimum.
Is this government afing joke or what . Who’s responsibility is to landscape of the roads ? Just like your own yard .
“No plan”, and/or “hadn’t thought of that” seem to be the common denominators of most Cabinet-lead infrastructure projects – carried out at our considerable expense. All of these roads were supposed to have included some thought for dedicated bicycle lanes. In 2006, NRA Deputy Director Edward Howard said, “we will try to include them in all future primary and secondary roads”. What happened?!?
“Bicycles” seem like a great idea in 90+ degree temps on most days
With the real-feel temp being generally at least 100 (generally higher)
Anyone in an office would be a social pariah or need a shower or two upon arrival
But I for one would love to see our Premier (who is an avid cyclist) ride his bike to work
Perhaps he can convince the entire cabinet to do so, they might even be healthier for it
The heat isn’t the main reason to not bike. It’s the fact that anyone who has ever rode a bike as transportation has been hit or nearly hit by a car. I’ve been hit and the girl who cut me off still thinks she wasn’t in the wrong I bet. Every one of the witnesses begs to differ though.
Yet, it’s over 90’F in most cities in North America this time of the year, and cycling couldn’t be more popular. It’s too dangerous – mostly because the police are STILL not adequately supervising our race tracks.
Minister Hew, your comprehensive review of public transport I assume would include allowing in Uber, Lyft and the like, in addition to a standardizing and properly regulating bus and taxi services. This is to involve cracking down on rogue bus drivers, making it a requirement for taxis to have meters and setting fair rates.
Don’t give us the same old “lets see how much government can make off this deal without doing anything” approach. You’re constantly bragging about services in Cayman being “world class” except our public transport is just like in any other banana republic.
And if you’re very serious about your statement regarding building more roads, well lets see you have the ball$ to bring in legislation to limit the number of vehicles on our roads like Bermuda wisely did many moons ago.
Remember, your statements are just verbal flatulence if you fail to act now.
What in the world are you talking about?
Most of the “so called banana republics” in Central America also have public “route taxis” where the rates are minimal and persons share the taxi.
You need to travel more and stop spouting off what you think you know!
Idiot!
Ah! So you mean our public transportation is actually worse than a banana republic?