Work begins on widening existing EWA
(CNS): The National Roads Authority (NRA) has begun work on widening the existing East-West Arterial from Poindexter Road to Hirst Road from two lanes to four. This next phase of work is part of the continued effort to tackle Grand Cayman’s mounting congestion and reduce the commute times during rush hour for people living in the Eastern Districts. The project is expected to be finished by July of this year.
As well as widening both sides of the road, new streetlights are being installed along the route.
UK-based road planning expert Kevin Kay, who conducted a study on behalf of local environmental activists Amplify Cayman, said that widening this section and other roadworks on the edge of Central George Town would be more beneficial to most commuters than extending the EWA eastwards.
Planning and Infrastructure Minister Jay Ebanks, who is responsible for roads and transport, revealed last week that the NRA will soon begin work on a road running behind Grand Harbour that will help with the bottleneck in that area, which has a massive impact on traffic congestion.
However, the PACT Government remains committed to building the EWA all the way to Frank Sound, as it is becoming more apparent from comments made by several ministers and even Premier Wayne Panton that the build-out of the EWA through Bodden Town and the Central Mangrove Wetlands is about development and not to reduce traffic congestion.
As construction gets underway on the stretch of road between Prospect and Newlands, drivers are being asked to exercise caution and slow down when driving through active road work zones.
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Category: development, Local News
Chime Street needs a roundabout. It would be hard for people to get into Spotts Newlands for those who live there.
Public transportation can only work if you teach certain foreigners that you need to walk to a bus stop that is not on a corner. Not in front of your house or be close to other passengers going the same way. You need them to understand to let the bus driver know you a need a bus by waving your hand. They need to pay at the beginning of the bus ride.
That being said, it won’t work unless there is a consensus that a bus is not a limousine. So first thing you need to have is 1) bus stops that allow customers a place to wait with cover from the rain and the sun and a seat. The bus stop must be off the road far enough so it doesn’t stop traffic from going around. 2) Take out middle seats in coaster busses ( bus is full with 22 passengers seated) 3) Government must pay a minimum of $5000 per month per bus, like they pay the school busses. 4) most of the reason busses take long to move faster, the road is blocked or they have to make change or the excuses that the passenger has no change or money to pay for the trip (because the driver collects after the ride). 5) Fixing this problem of speedier service can be remedied by Government paying for a free ride or collecting money for a week’s pass, monthly pass or areas in hotels, grocery stores, gas stations etc. no money transaction is the best (less crime). As we go along the bus companies have a chance to upgrade to larger busses which will come at a much higher cost of over 100,000’s dollars.
As long as government put in place these first simple needs to launch a new public transport service, we could start tomorrow morning?
Well there are almost a hundred tour busses parked in George Town waiting for business from
the cruise lines.
They are parked there from 5:45 every morning. The need for so many public busses is only 5:30-9:00am then 2:45-7:00pm at this time. Public Busses leaving every 5 minutes. During this time we would have 1-2-3 busses leaving at the same time for the extra load factor. We can reduce the amount of busses to a bus every 15 minutes after 9:00am till 2:45pm when we would increase more busses to leave at 5 minute intervals after 2:45-7:00pm. We do the same as the morning schedule for the evening schedule.
Try it, CI Government would save10 of millions of dollars of road resurfacing and widening.
D Miller tour operator, 33 years experience, Caymanian
Two lanes is what we’ve been waiting for. Now I can race anyone trying to pass or in front of me. Hurry up! I need more lanes to speed on and scare the life out of cyclists. Can’t wait. By the way this is all sarcasm based on real near death experiences driving and cycling in Cayman.
if youre a cyclist. We all hate you. You have a bike lake, but sure as the sun rises. You will ride on the road.
As far as I am concerned. Bicycles are not equal to vehicles. The law says otherwise, but I think they got the law wrong on this one. You do not pay insurance on your bike, neither do you pay every year to get your bicycle road worthy. So stay in the bike lane, NOT on the road. You are not a car.
New Flash!! Create public transportation and get all the old derelict cars off the road. Too may ‘Fixers’ being paid off to get all the jalopies and inspection pass. PACT has no political will (or agreement between their selfish members fixated on pet projects within their constituencies to get them re-elected) to do either. Just saying!
We can’t keep building mega-roads! We need to invest in better public transport and have less overall vehicles on the roads we already have.
Agree/Disagree?🤔🚌🚎
🟢Protect our environment
🟠Stop overdevelopment
🔴Stop duplicity
You give up your vehicles first. Then maybe we’ll listen.
Please look up literally anything to do with urban planning and learn why road-widening isn’t sufficient action to tackle traffic. Start by looking up the concept of ‘induced demand’ to get a particular idea of why this will not reduce traffic, and in fact will just make it worse.
The other guy was right – if you want to reduce traffic, you have to take cars off the road or reduce reliance on individual vehicles. To do that, you have to provide a robust alternative (i.e. public transport).
I’d happily give up a car and take a reliable bus or rail to get where I need to go. No hesitation, whatsoever.
The Hurley’s roundabout is NOT the problem…traffic goes from Cayman national roundabout and Bobby Thompson traffic lights. Now traffic will pile up faster from East End with wider road! Hurley’s roundabout is a problem for evening rush hour traffic but they are moving well.
CNS readers
What do you think about building a bridge like the one between Tampa and St Petersburg? Build it 20 feet above the mangrove buffer from Newlands straight to Camana Bay with an exit/ entrance at Red Bay, Marina drive, Industrial Park, Airport RD.
This shouldn’t be too hard. All you need is the concrete pilons and the pre constructed road surface in 20 foot lengths. It will only affect the marine life during construction and will go back to a replenishment zone when completed.
They won’t build a bridge as the real purpose of the road is to open it up for the development. There is no need to build this road through a mangrove wetland as there are alternative solutions.
Do you have spare change to build for us as it will run in hundreds of millions which Cayman can’t afford it!
Great if the Chinese design and build it, bad, bad, bad if local draftsmen and locals do so.
Much the same result can be achieved if the Camana Bay architect lays the proposed “iconic tower/phallic symbol” on its side.
Either way it’s a costly means of providing a convenient platform for immigrant labourers to fish from.
You gine pay for it ah?
It began 4 weeks ago, why only in the news now?
Assume this extension is so Panton can get home quicker, also the new soon to be Popeyes at Red Bay will be on the way home for him, assume that’s a half way stop on his route.
Its about votes, he is trying to speed up the commute for the easily impressed Newlands voters so that they re-elect him
If it takes as long as the link road to North Church St (31/2 years and still not finished), we will have another 40,000 vehicles on the road by then.
Reclaim the bottom 1/5th of the North Sound, turn it all into roads/canal front living, whatever…make the Island wider and get rid of the bottle necks.
too sane a solution, i know. But come on
Good job here CIG / NRA. No doubt there will be detractors who are selfishly only concerned with themselves and care not for others getting to and from their place of employment and homes. Ignore them and let’s get this roadway completed as soon as possible! Yes, other means are needed also, but so are the road improvements!
OMG… can you finish the many projects already in the works before starting another one???
Fix the dump!
Damn it!
Fix the rapid expat population increase.
waste of time to extend the road. it’s done because of the conjestion of traffic on the road .the more roads the more traffic build up .
The increased use with two lanes heading west from Hirst Road will also make the first roundabout near Lantern Point a bigger cluster too. It already fills to the brim with idiots blocking it. This could then increase the number of fools speeding through Prospect Point too.
Good old whack a mole.
You need a decent bus system and options for a couple of park and rides. But we all know that it isn’t going to happen.
The maniacal “bus” lobby will never allow it.
NRA be sure to install culverts under this stretch to allow for the drainage of flood water especially from water coming in by way of the Savannah gulley .
Agreed. I’ve seen the NRA plans and the mitigation plans call for elevated sections of the road where needed for drainage concerns.
The EWA extension is sorely needed at least to Pease Bay as the ribbon of a road between Savannah, through Bodden Town onto Pease Bay is simply not safe for today’s traffic needs, let alone tomorrows.
Perhaps if our roads were not occupied by trains of quarry trucks from dawn to dusk 7 days a week things might be different.
There needs to stop putting roundabouts every single 100 feet and the bridge and light transport rail in the middle of the bypass highway. Plus the stop signals at Hirst Road to let traffic pass through the new EWA junction joining Hirst Road. Light rail will get people to and from East End to town in 10 mins.
And crosswalks
Utter nonsense. How will this help the conjestion at Hurleys Roundabout?
We will all get to the Hurleys Roundabout congestion faster.
Will be wonderful. More time to listen to the car radio.
It will move it further East.
Very simple… it will not! I can hear discussion now… well sh*t I guess we forgot roads infrastructure with all the planning approvals. It wasn’t me sir, it was him. Oh no, I told him but he said we didn’t need to worry about it the computer would sort it out. Guess what?
Ever heard of GIGO? (Garbage In, Garbage Out)!
What do you call doing the same thing over & over, and expecting a different result????
What a bunch of jokers… just as sharp as a bowling ball 🙂
I wonder if they’ll finish the road widening before the widening ministers waistlines require a larger belts?
I wonder how we compare with the other OT’s pound for pound.
5.17pm Hopefully the widening is completed so that you can think of something sensible to write and not obsess so much about ministers waistlines.
Would have been better off just pissing that money up against a wall
they do that too….cig can multi-task!
Not fixing the problem. The main problems being the lack of decent public transport and let’s be honest too many people. We aren’t built to sustain a population of 100k which is what government seems to be pushing us towards.
News flash, we are already at 100K
Widening the EWA road doesn’t resolve the issue of getting people efficiently onto Hirst road, which is what they are all waiting in traffic trying to do. All this widening is just getting cars to the choke points faster.
Where we need widening is Shamrock road westbound between the Savannah SDA church and Spotts Newlands road.
Thanks!
The infrastructure back in the day to should have been at LEAST like west bay road where there is a turning lane, makes a huge difference. like i said at least. would be more smart there were two lanes going to and from…
This is madness.
“The project is expected to be finished by July of this year.” – LOLLLL
Yoy may as well be widening highways in Florida for all the good this will do at Hurley’s.
just like how widening linford pierson solved the traffic issue…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
will make zero difference to traffic.
this is just another excercise in keeping pwd and nra busy.
welcome to wonderland.
There needs to be either a stop sign or a traffic signal at Hirst Road and the EWA junction immediately.
Foolish not to have it yet.
GET IT DONE NOW.
You get it done.
Sounds like a job for another roundabout!
A flyover of Hirst is what is needed.