Airport road first phase to finish by September
(CNS): The minister responsible for roads said the first section of the Airport Connector Road (BP 588) is now due to be finished in September, nine months later than the original completion date estimate. Answering questions in parliament as MPs met Wednesday, Infrastructure Minister Jay Ebanks said that work on section one was progressing and most of the equipment needed was on-island.
The new road linking the Esterley Tibbetts Highway to Sparky Drive is expected to reduce traffic congestion in George Town, especially at the Butterfield Roundabout, but the costly project is taking a long time to complete.
Its construction, which began more than three years ago and is being publicly funded by the National Roads Authority but managed by Dart, has been plagued by delays over the tendering process for the culvert and other work necessitated by the fact that part of the highway was built across wetlands.
The road passes through the industrial area and behind the dump before coming out south of Cayman International School at Camana Bay. The construction budget was around $800,000, and the contract was awarded to Dart. But in addition to that, the NRA has spent millions of dollars on fill for the highway.
Answering a parliamentary question from Joey Hew (GTN), who was the minister responsible for roads when the work began, Ebanks said that work on section one was progressing and he expected it would be finished before the end of September, though he did not mention the situation relating to section two. He said he had been “reliably informed” that the issues relating to culverts and the infrastructure were resolved and “the majority” of what was needed was already in Cayman.
Responding to another question, this one from PPM member Barbara Conolly (GTS), the minister revealed that the double yellow lines on one side of Hawkins Drive in the Windsor Park area would be removed — the double yellow lines are currently on both sides. Conolly said she had been campaigning for some time to get at least one side of the road cleared.
Answering a second roads-related question from Conolly, Ebanks confirmed that electric bikes and scooters must be licensed if they go more than 15mph, and riders should wear helmets. Acknowledging that these vehicles are emissions-free and help with congestion, Conolly said she had concerns that they weren’t safe and should be registered and that people who use them should be required to have insurance.
The minister made no comment about how that might be too costly for those currently using them for economic reasons. He said he had heard Conolly’s concerns and would pass them on to the ministerial team.
See the brief morning session of parliament below on CIGTV:
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: development, Local News
ghable that it must be satire. There can be no other plausible explanation for the comments to that effect. As someone who has lived in many countries throughout the world, including. Southeast Asia, Latin America, New York, and more, Grand Cayman features some of the most reckless driving I have ever seen. People drive with complete disregard for their own lives, let alone those of others. With roads featuring walls right up to the pavement I’ve often thought to myself that cayman might be the least pedestrian and cyclist friendly place on the planet (an exaggeration, but not by much). The truth is riding an e-bike or scooter is dangerous, for the person on it. As someone who has commuted via car, motorbike, bicycle, e scooter, and my own two feet it is clear that we need a change. Our roads can be safer for everyone. But that requires taking those off the road who do double or triple the speed limit and those who weave through traffic like a video game. I have never heard of a place with more single car accidents than here, these are accidents caused by bad driving and dangerously constructed roads. We can do better, I hope that we do.
I am not a fan of PPM nor am I a Fan of PACT, I do though Admire elected officials that look out for Caymanians and the Generations to come! No one elected seems to have that mindset.
Just thinking out loud! When the opposition get a chance to put questions to the Government, is this all they can come up with?
Removing one side of Double yellow lines in a residential Neighbourhood on a small street overcrowded with a million cars? For what? Parking roadside? Jeez, for the type of salary they collect I feel they can do better.
This road will benefit the environmentalist…by allowing easy access to CB!
Correct, a sustainable development comprised of multiple LEED certified buildings and thoughtful landscaping.
Very easy to see that a lot of cars on the road are not registered and have no insurance. (Doesn’t CIG forgive them every five years or so?) But of course make a law that bikes must have insurance to drive on the roads and see how that works with no law enforcment. Cayman kind.
This road should have been built under the dump and over the sewerage tanks, connecting to an undersea tunnel from GTYC to Rum Point.
lol
Not sure that “pedal cycle” licensing fits many of these guiding framework conditions below…
Eight underlying principles of “the Rule of Law” (from legislation.gov.ky):
1. Laws should apply equally to all.
2. Ministers and public officials must exercise the powers conferred in good faith, fairly, for the purposes for which they were conferred – reasonably and without exceeding the limits of such powers.
3. The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental Human Rights
4. The state must provide a way of resolving disputes which the parties cannot themselves resolve.
5. The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.
6. The rule of law rehires compliance by the state with its obligations in international as well as national laws.
7. The law must be accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable.
8. Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by the exercise of the law and not the exercise of discretion.
September of what year??
2025
2026
2027
2029 (….can’t count….)
“Ebanks confirmed that electric bikes and scooters must be licensed if they go more than 15mph, and riders should wear helmets. .. Conolly said she had concerns that they weren’t safe and should be registered and that people who use them should be required to have insurance.”
I literally ride my physically powered bicycle ~25-30 mph on the ETH in a good downwind. It’s not my fault if people can’t drive or ride.
If everyone rode bicycles, one of the leading cause of death in Cayman – CARS – wouldn’t be causing death on the road. Yet they want a bicycle to be insured?! People get injured on bicycles because of the poorly driven vehicles 95% of the time.
Roundabouts, Roundabouts
No, no….a thousand times no! Roundabouts are for those who have problems driving.
NO !!!! Roundabouts are things the devil wants. And they are great time-wasters.
September of which year?
Horrifically unmanaged traffic and environmental decay… but no, electric scooters are the issue!
Nice welcome to cayman for our overseas visitors “CUC on the left, sewage treatment on the right and yes that pungent aroma is our dump just ahead” welcome to cayman.
…did we just hit something? …no that’s just a cyclist, they shouldn’t have been there.
They don’t like them because they don’t need gas, insurance etc etc.
and they get passed in a traffic jam of Dodge rams and Range Rovers with 1 passenger
No EIA for airport road managed by dart and silence from our so called selective environmentalist??? frauds
An eia for a road that runs next to an uncapped, unlined dump and the industrial area? 😅
No bicycles should be allowed to ride abreast and especially south sound to south church street. It is dangerous the way experienced bicyclists ride too far out to the right of a very narrow road. Either build a proper bike lane or forbid bicyclists from using narrow roads. They can use proper bicycle lanes on the highway from town to west bay. They are going to get hurt.
Bicycles have a legal right of way on the road. It won’t kill you to wait 30 seconds to safely overtake them.
No they don’t.
“For motorists, sharing the road begins with the understanding that cyclists and motorcyclists have the same rights as you,” Hew said. “They face unique safety challenges, such as being smaller and less visible. We all have a duty as motorists, pedestrians and cyclists to look out for each other to prevent road offences and injuries.”
https://caymannewsservice.com/2020/09/nra-aims-to-improve-safety-for-cyclist/
Not right of way. Sharrows designate that cyclists have the right to ride and occupy the full lane like other road-users. They have the same rights and responsibilities as motor vehicles, and could ride two abreast to hold that area. Cyclists “may use full lane” is literally stencilled on the road. Overtaking vehicles must give a minimum of 3 feet of safe distance, no matter the width of the lane.
https://www.caymanroads.com/sharrow
Nothing said about riding abreast.
The only cyclists going less than 15 mph are holding a beer. Not that there are any police anywhere to catch anything. The Traffic Law is an unenforced joke.
How about you keep your side of the street clean?
“Old man yells at clouds”
No doubt so of that $Ms in “fill” was used to pad out political pockets. Get while you can you wretches, your day of reckoning is coming.
Leave the electric bikes and scooters alone. Green transport that harms no one except the users, who know the risk.
If you don’t, then fair is fair, so enact a gas guzzler tax on behemoth pickup trucks and suvs and luxury tax on all vehicles $50,000 or more.
Stop punishing poor people who need transport, but ban those absurdly slow 3 wheeled GPS contraptions.
A “luxury tax” on vehicles over $50K. Right now duty is 42% on cars at that price.
Raise it
Leave the motorbike alone as well!
Cut the duties on motorbikes and scooters.
Dirty 2 strokes should be banned completely
If you think 2 strokes are dirty, you should watch what a shade tree mechanic does with the used oil after an oil change. He doesn’t take it with him.
you seem to care about poor people, yet the electric bikes and scooters in Cayman mean untimely death.
CIG, with all the money they boast they “make”, can’t accomplish 2 BASIC, for any developed country(territory), things: Public Transportation and Waste Management.
There is already an effective luxury tax on vehicles – import duty is at a higher rate for the more expensive cars.
Raise it
yeh, until they ride one into the side of your car and you have to foot the repair bill since they don’t have insurance.
How would a cyclist ride into the side of your car if you are looking both ways when merging, where you are going underway, and giving the safe distance they deserve as road users? How does that happen?
Great work Barb. A dozen people die in car accidents every year, not to mention mowing down cyclists and pedestrians. But you want to clamp down on “dangerous” bikes and scooters that have killed precisely no one.
I have a suggestion, if you think it looks dangerous, don’t ride one.
So when your hard head smashes my windshield, who gonna pay for it to be replaced?
Actually, there has been at least one death. A young man who may not have appreciated the risk and was killed. A helmet may have saved him. Electric scooters and electric ‘go-faster’ bicycle riders should wear helmets. Racing bike cyclists wear helmets because they know the risk.
Barbara is correct. We should encourage more of these vehicles but we must encourage their use with safety in mind.
The eBike didn’t cause the death, the car did.
Blaming a deceased cyclist for not wearing a helmet is like blaming the victim of a shooting for not wearing a Kevlar vest.
When should we expect to see the first arrests and charges filed in relation to the rampant illegal use of electric bicycles and scooters?
Yes, a $1000 fine and/or 12 months in jail for all the bike owners that DVDL doesn’t know what to do with. Notably a sentence 4 times longer than the home confinement ankle bracelet sentence served for vehicular manslaughter by those that run down and kill cyclists in the Cayman Islands. Makes sense. /s
From the same gang that threatened higher fines for feeding chicken than illegally clearing vegetation.
I would be happy just to hear of some charges filed for no front license plate being displayed. It is now beyond funny.
Why?
This is gaining popularity. Even saw a car with an American college football tag on the front.
No front plates for thee, no front plates for me.
Join the no front plate revolution!
Probably about the same time they crack down on speeding, drunk driving, Jake brakes, unlicensed vehicles, reckless driving, illegal tint, parking violations, tailgating, dirt bikes, overloaded trucks…
what do you mean by “illegal use”?
I mean exactly what the law says. They are not permitted on our roads.
No, the Traffic Law (2021) says the opposite: it (now) says that “Pedal Cycles” need to be licensed. DVDL has updated their site to indicate that e-bikes can be licensed as mopeds for $100 a year. Seems a tad high considering a full school bus license is $150, but nothing ever seems to make sense when it comes to transportation in the Cayman Islands.
When should we expect to see the first arrests and charges filed in relation to the rampant illegal use of cars? Without a license, without a car insurance, cars that are falling apart?
If you bothered to check the Traffic Court cause lists you would see plenty. You can even do so from the same browser you are using to complain on CNS
The ONLY solution to Cayman’s traffic problem, short of restricting the importation and ownership of cars which will never happen for all the same old reasons, is to move the airport lock-stock-and-barrel out to East End. The benefits to Grand Cayman and its inhabitants are so numerous and so obvious that they don’t need setting out.
But of course no politician, except the usually repulsive but occasionally insightful McKeeva, has ever even considered so radical, daring and effective a proposal.
The ONLY solution to Cayman’s traffic problem is a FULL scale Public transportation system.
Public transport reform planned as traffic woes mount (Compass)
By James Whittaker – March 8, 2022
Cayman looks to partner with Barbados on creation of local public bus system
By Reshma Ragoonath – June 20, 2022 (Compass)
“Tourism and Transport Minister Kenneth Bryan is teaming up with his Barbados counterpart for the creation of a national public bus system in a bid to alleviate Cayman’s traffic congestion woes.”
🤥 Bryan plans to ‘transform’ public. [2021]
Kenneth Bryan 🤡, the new minister of tourism and transport, has committed [🔜] to making the necessary legislative changes to transform public transport in the Cayman Islands.
..his vision 🧑🏽🦯 was to have a first world, first class Ministry of Transport, fully supported and resourced, that is effectively able to resolve Cayman’s transport and traffic issues.
Bryan said he is a “young and energetic new minister” 🤣
transporthttps://caymannewsservice.com/2021/05/bryan-plans-to-transform-public-transport/
Finally The Joke of the Day: 🤡 Grand Cayman has a reasonably good public bus system that operates seven days a week. https://caymanresident.com/live/transportation/public-buses
Kenneth was recently scared off by bus operators who refuse to drive a designated route into the waterfront.
Woww
Cause Kenny is a fence riding MLA that wants to make everyone happy so he gets reelected.
Actually the easiest is remote working for thousands who do all of their work on a computer, but as usual, the Caymanian way is to throw money at a problem in an effort to reinvent the wheel.
Pass the rum
Most of the Civil Service is remotely working already.
These culverts will drain all that dump and sewage treatment leachate right into the sound. Where is the EIA published for this project? Was there a public meeting on this?
It goes into the water tables after flowing downhill to whichever poor souls live or own a business in low lying areas.
It was already going there, this might be a partial dam to keep it back..
No need for an EIA. The mangroves along this stretch can be sacrificed….the drain-off etc. into the north sound is ok. This isn’t tongue and cheek…it must be a fact because I haven’t heard or read of any concern from the DoE.
Phase one nah get you anywhere.
“Ebanks confirmed that electric bikes and scooters must be licensed if they go more than 15mph”. The 15mph cycling limit in the Traffic Law has never made sense. Tour de France cyclists do 15mph up hill in the mountain stages. All bikes can go faster than this.
Class 1 e-bikes have pedal assist up to 20mph. Much slower than a lot of analog riders.
Class 2 have a thumb throttle. Still 20mph assist limit. Class 1 and 2 have functional pedals, gears, and usually disk brakes. With active pedalling and a freewheel swap the rider can more or less mesh safely into surrounding traffic speed in 25mph zones, if the cars themselves are adhering to the posted speed limit. Nothing extraordinarily dangerous about that. Arguably safer than analog bikes.
Class 3 are 28mph+ and have static footpegs. Those are basically motorcycles. Those might make sense to have a license, and definitely a helmet, horn/bell lights, but no such framework exists at DVDL for licensing any ebikes or scooters.
Let’s try to make sense. It’s past time for a sitting government to reach out to the robust Cayman Islands cycling community and engage. Plenty of free input is available.
You have the speed correct on Class 3 but most are actually pedal assist which means you have to pedal to engage the motor. The cheaper Chinese crap models have a throttle.
Sure thing. We’ll ask Perry what happens when you ride without a helmet.
Had to pave the whole of North Side before they could get back to this important piece of infrastructure. Hence the real reason for the delays.
And Northward…
Forget ‘phase 2’, when is ‘phase 3’ or whatever they want to call it to connect this to the actual airport connector road going to be done. Coming from the airport, then to CUC then down Sparky Drive is a stopgap at best. And the Minister, the former minister, and NRA, should know this.
All bikes go over 15mph when you peddle them on flat terrain. They are supposed to be in the NRA bike lanes and corridors all these ministers never delivered. They are required to be part of every road plan since 2015, including that airport extender to Sparky. How many more cyclists have to be run down by drunk drivers to make the point?
Good lord it’s 1 mile of road what is taking so long
Lol that’s cayman!
Nothing ever changes 😉
Must be new here. No projects are prioritized to reach completion before starting others to keep the unemployables employed.
Who exactly are “the unemployables”?
Easy. It keeps the umeployables employed.
Nice.
Now from there, connect a bridge to Hirst Rd in Newlands
Section one by itself does nothing to alleviate traffic anywhere. Come see the cluster down Sparky Drive now.
Ps. Barbara was on point. En fuego, some might say.