Roadworks underway while island under curfew
(CNS): With fewer vehicles on the road during the current curfews, the National Roads Authority is taking advantage of the lull in traffic, using this time to work on critical road infrastructure projects on Grand Cayman, which a release from the NRA said will inject over $25 million into the local economy. The first projects will include the upgrading of the Chrissie Tomlinson and Grand Harbour Roundabouts in the Red Bay and Prospect areas.
The NRA said it is also gearing up for construction on a new road that will provide a connection between Sparky Drive and the roundabout adjacent to George Town Landfill on the Esterley Tibbetts Highway.
See the new layout of Grand Harbour Roundabout when the project is complete.
Before that, the NRA said, a number of major roads across Grand Cayman will also undergo asphalt resurfacing, including Shedden Road, North Sound Road and West Bay Road, which would ordinarily be difficult to pave during heavy traffic, the authority said.
However, the NRA said that all of their staff and contractors will be tested for COVID-19 before they are allowed to work on the projects and NRA crews will be provided with personal protective equipment (PPE). They will also have to adhere to safety protocols and social distancing guidelines.
Minister of Commerce, Planning and Infrastructure Joey Hew said that the planned expenditure for 2020/2021 infrastructure work includes over $25 million in road projects, which will provide a much needed stimulus to the local economy during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We are using this time as an opportunity for the National Roads Authority to proceed with critical road construction and pavement rehabilitation projects that would prove more difficult and costly to achieve during regular traffic conditions,” Hew said.
“Crews will be engaged under circumstances where they are adhering to social distancing protocols and equipped with proper PPE, so that we can ensure their safety while they carry out this vital improvement to the island’s infrastructure,” the minister added.
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Category: development, Local News
Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
Under the heading of “bad” laws, The Roads Law (2005) confers abnormal powers and discretion to the NRA and its Chariman. We should be reworking the entire document, line by line to remove the opportunities for criminal abuse. It is also strange that there are no public obligations (eg. to maintain the streets and shoulders clear of sand, and other debris) in the law. Shoulders and bike lanes are not part of the law. The number of times the documents says, “in its (NRA’s) absolute discretion” should alarm everyone. Time’s up on these political corruption mechanisms.
The NRA spent “who knows how much” on random pedestrian crosswalks/traffic lights to roadsides without sidewalks, and still hasn’t painted or cordoned-off the bike lanes promised and budgeted in the NRA 2015-2020 plan.
What about spraying for mosquitoes?
Well, the stagnate water helped fuel that fire.
The plane was out in Prospect Thursday afternoon/evening.
Spraying what chemicals
Thank goodness road repairs are finally getting done! I was so happy to see Eastern Ave and the Shedden Road junction repaired with proper lines on the road! Eastern Ave itself is in need too!
No one would know it for the current condition, but Eastern Avenue was completely re-surfaced 10-15 years ago (that’s fairly new for us here) but NRA contracted the work out to a local company (not sure who supplied the tarmac – but it had far too much tar content) and it immediately looked like black ice and rolled up under vehicular traffic. Of course no one was held to account and us the people have had to put up with it ever since.
I’d like to know what happened to the Road Paver that has been on “loan” to the Brac since 2010!
I can still see Her Honourable sitting at the wheel of that expensive piece of machinery.
Most likely just a pile of rust by now…forget it, they can keep it.
We are heading down the road to financial grief.
Where is the money coming from to finance these projects?
Seems the cruise industry is in turmoil and sucking wind, a crucial financial provider to our coffers, not to mention stay over tourism with flight restrictions and closed borders in place for the foreseeable future. The USA is bearing the financial brunt of this pandemic; banks including financial powerhouses are tightening their purse strings so no more easy money flooding in to fund increasingly detrimental non reversible developments to these Islands.
For years this Government has been willfully wasting easy money hand over fist on fruitless, senseless failed projects, earned from exorbitant taxation i.e. real estate, tourism, work permits hotel fees etc. at the expense its citizens well being especially children, seniors and the vulnerable with the exception of Government workers (the golden ticket) and so called seafarers and their cronies, they are on a mission to increase these sectors with no fiscal restraints in place.
In their wisdom this Government is idly standing by allowing heartless greedy utility service providers to financially rape us at will.
Perhaps in a round a bout way this ongoing crisis will slow us down giving us all time to ponder and reflect where our priorities lie for the betterment of the Islands and its population.
In my opinion, but for a few, this present Government does not have the expertise, skill sets or motivation required to carry out its fundamental duties as a governing body for its people their mantra “easy come easy go”.
We are all in this together.
Just sayin.
When the private sector suffers, governments must spend to keep people employed with a wage, to keep on spending, supporting governments.
FDR did this to try and recover from the great depression, spending on massive capital projects like the Hoover Dam.
Unfortunately the main recovery from the Depression was from WWII, and the manufacture and sale of weapons and ammunition to the Allies before the US joined the war. The UK on finished paying off their war loans to the states 10 years ago.
Let’s hope we don’t need the same this time around.
It might also be good if the good if the Government can start working on legislation to limit the number of cars on the road when life gets back to normal…like limit the import of used cars to no more than 10 year old or so, work on providing robust public transportation so that not everyone has to own and drive a car, etc.
On the basis that the average age of a car on the road is 11 years, then used cars should be no more than 3 years old unless they are a collectable.
I would agree with the age of the car, but it is discriminating poorer people who can’t afford a new or newer car. They should be allowed to drive like the rest of us who can afford one.
You would still be able to buy an older car that is already on island, we shouldn’t be importing old cars is the point the original poster was making.
Theoretically
from the people who said building more roads is not the answer….
show me the last roads project that improved traffic…..linford peirson expansion????…don’t make me laugh
so when the island is facing economic meltdown… cig is continueing to spend on roads.
just another day in wonderland.
Linford Pierson did help a bit. Could you imagine if it wasn’t done?
Agreed. My question is; what’s happening with Bobby Thompson Way? And the section from the most westerly roundabout of Linford Pierson Way across to horse ranch and connecting to Bobby Thompson Way….15+ years started now!
pure madness..but as usual pwd has got to be kept busy.
the party never stops in the civil service….esp when the private sector is on its knees.
cig will soon learn when uk takes over the finances again.
PPM running with it again spending all the money again on road we soon hear they finishing the $100m school, history really does repeat itself.
Doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity, and that right there describes our government insane.
Blame yourselves, you all voted them in , or you forgot that.
We are heading down the road to financial grief (hopefully we had the foresight to amass a pile of rainy day money).
Where is the money coming from to finance these projects?
Seems the cruise industry is in turmoil and sucking wind, a crucial financial provider to our coffers, not to mention stay over tourism. with flight restrictions and closed borders in place for the foreseeable future. The USA is bearing the financial brunt of this pandemic; banks including financial powerhouses are tightening their purse strings so no more easy money flooding in to fund increasingly detrimental nonreversible developments to these Islands.
For years this Government has been willfully wasting easy money hand over fist on fruitless, senseless failed projects, earned from exorbitant taxation i.e. real estate, tourism, work permits hotel fees etc. at the expense its citizens wellbeing especially children, seniors and the vulnerable with the exception of Government workers (the golden ticket) and so called seafarers and their cronies, they are on a mission
to increase these sectors with no fiscal restraints in place.
In their wisdom this Government is idly standing by allowing heartless greedy utility and service providers to financially rape us at will,
encouraging price gouging to boot.
Perhaps in a round a bout way this ongoing crisis will slow us down giving us all time to ponder and reflect where our priorities lie for the betterment of the Islands and its population.
In my opinion, with the exception of a few this present Government does not have the expertise, skill sets or motivation required to carry out its fundamental duties as a governing body for its people.
In My opinion, but for a few, this present Government does not possess the expertise, skill sets or motivation to carry out its fundamental duties towards its people and the environment, Their mantra “easy come easy go” the chickens are surely coming home to roost.
We are all in this together.
Just sayin.
This is week 9 of lockdown. Traffic is 10x what it was before the restrictions were eased. Why are they only starting now! These projects could have been nearly finished!
The workers had to be tested for the virus before releasing them to work, in case they do have to come in close contact with any of their co-workers.
there is always an excuse. Do they engage in kissing and hugging while at work? If not, how do they get the virus if they wear masks while talking to each other? Being outdoors greatly reduces risk of getting or spreading this particular virus. Sun kills it before it figures out who to attack.
No but they sure do Luke to gather in groups of 4! 1 doing the work and 3 watching them.
Masks don’t eliminate transmissions just reduce them. When you breathe out a lot goes through the mask , just not as much. Hence staying 6 ft away even when wearing a mask.
PS the virus is inanimate- it doesn’t “figure out who to attack”. It gets on you, you touch it, you touch your face or inhale it, bingo. And if you think sunlight kills it in the fractions of a second it ales floats big through the air before you inhale it you are sadly wrong. Studies have shown the virus can survive on hard surfaces for days. I am sure it doesn’t last for days in our Caribbean sun and heat, but I betcha it’s good for long enough for human to human transmission.
Had to make testing Brackers a priority in order to properly kowtow to Moses and JuJu.
Good plan CIG thank you.
So not bringing back the NRAs paving equipment from the Brac to do the job is a deliberate move, designed to maximise the reflation of the private sector. And here I was thinking that was down to something else and not a masterful grasp of Keynesian macroeconomics.
Joey Hew proves again how stupid he is as planing minister
Had this been done six weeks ago, it might have been a good idea. As it stands, just another in the long line of failures by Jokey Hew.
#JOEYWHO
NRA – when is Eastern Avenue going to get your attention??!!
When MLAs buy the surrounding properties
@ Anonymous 15/05/2020 at 8:33 am – who do you think already owns most of Eastern Ave?! Go take a look at the registers down at Lands & Survey.
Promised and budgeted bike lanes going in, or do more people still need to die?
Recent comments seem to suggest cyclists don’t use the bike lanes because of road debris. Kind of bags the question why continue to create them unless we can keep them clean and usable?
What bike lanes? The ones that cars park on? Oh yes, mighty large debris if you ask me.
They only care about people not getting Covid19. Dying from other causes is fine.
The latter I expect! It has been so nice during lockdown to see the bikers and joggers and walkers and families using SS road and the cars having secondary importance. But it won’t last – most voters don’t want to walk or bike or jog. They want that late model air-conditioned giant SUV that can barely fit in the KFC drive-thru lane and they need all the road to drive them on.
I doubt we’ll see many bikers, walkers in rainy season, so not sure making roads for bikers for 6 months of use is prudent. But I’m not a biker, nor would I ever entertain the idea even if there were paths as the drivers here are SO HORRIBLE.
Okay, good plan. But could we have some signage regarding lane closures? It is a mess at the Christie Roundabout, and it changes daily. Just please advise us os lane closures before we have to slam on the brakes with no notice.
I haven’t been out much during this lockdown, is there really that much traffic out there?
It’s not that complicated. But people still drive into oncoming traffic on the red bay road after the lanes changed.
All i can say, is if you’re not speeding and you are watching what you’re doing you’ll be fine. But I know that’s hard for drivers here.
I can think of a number of better ways that money could be spent right now! Finish the projects which are part way through but then put a halt on new roadworks. You are not “injecting money into the economy” sensibly by upgrading roads at a time when many people are out of work and struggling to make ends meet.
To a group of people what ever the Government do will not be RIGHT!
Throwing money that we need at non-urgent projects is wasteful. Where everyone else is trying to save economies our government repaves roads while people starve…good plan.
Joey is a clown Cayman has other priorities than roundabouts and repaying roads
At least those civil servants are working while they are getting paid as opposed to sitting on their arses while being paid.
I wish they would stop trying to improve the round-a-bouts! What a confusing mess they are making of everyone they have re-done within the last year. The Chrissie Tomlinson one, the one by the old car wash place. One big nightmare they are! Best of luck trying to figure them out while travelling at 25 or 30 MPH.
Great news.
Forget about the Port.
Fix the Dump!
Why am I repeating what people think is important and saying for years?
Govt is obviously, at times, reading some of these comments.
Hope East End road in front of blowholes is not left out! Also road from Breakers to Midland acres needs resurfacing in the interest of road safety!
Make west bay road great again
Especially the part in front of Captain’s Bakery….