Dear Editor,
I am a resident of the East Coast of Demerara (ECD). I am happy that we have a new smooth wide and clear road that will ease the traffic on the East Coast corridor in rush hour or traffic build-ups. But I am also sad. Sad that the level of engineering put into this project was even worse than the planning of a circus.
There were absolutely no public consultations on the design, a design meant for use by the public. Public consultations are very lucrative in the design process as it aids in ensuring the end product will be absolutely useful for its intended purpose without impacting the daily lives and businesses that reside immediately along the corridor. In developed countries, these designs are available online for public constructive scrutiny and criticisms, however, this was not the case for this project.
The engineers at the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI) treated these designs as if it were their personal heirloom and put it safely into pandora’s box where no one but the contractor and consultant had access to it. By guarding these designs, they perfectly preserved the flaws that eventually budded into the new ECD highway of hell. And by hell, I mean literally – all hell started from the inception of construction.
If one were to gather data on the accidents caused by improper road safety in the construction period, one would be alarmed at the frequency and amount of damages caused to vehicles by construction pits that were literally left open or unlighted construction zones. Driving home in the nights was a challenge also because the entire construction corridor was unlit most times.
To top it off, common sense was not a part of the planning process in the traffic diversions during the construction period especially during rush hour because this was not taken into consideration during the design process. The MPI is fully aware of these standard operating procedures of which are presented and reviewed in the design process utilising traffic data and studies collected and analysed.
To make matters worse, the IDB Country Rep to Guyana resorted to Facebook to highlight the nonsense that was happening after being stuck for hours in the construction zone traffic jam. If this was an IDB-funded project, the contractor may have either been immediately terminated or heavily sanctioned for the nonsense that was allowed to take place.
Most embarrassing is the fact that Geoffrey Vaughn, the coordinator for the Work Services Group (WSG), an engineering arm of MPI who are the ones responsible from the client end to oversee the project, traverses this corridor on his way to work and back every day and allowed the circus to entertain the play of citizens’ lives for the entire duration of this project, which, in my opinion, is criminal.
The MPI was responsible for sanctioning the consultant who was responsible for the management of the project and seems to have failed miserably. I do hope media houses would do a little more research to add to my letter with all the incidents and accidents during the construction phase and the loss of life associated.
The main reason for me writing this letter is, however, the lack of proper engineering which was supposed to be adopted to form the guidelines along which the whole project was designed. From previous knowledge and information received from a few longstanding engineers at MPI, the code usually adopted for road design is the AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials). An engineering review, should it be done, would show that this code, or no code, was adequately adopted or even properly consulted for the project design and construction procedures. The contractor was literally allowed to do as they pleased and the Consultant (E & A Inc) seemed like toothless poodles for the entire project.
There are sections of the roadway that are definitely licensed to kill, take for example the southern dual carriageway from Good Hope to Mon Repos Market, which literally cuts down in width to approximately half the roadway without a transition or even safety signs placed there. If one were to consult the Guyanese critic page, there was an instance whereby after a lengthy blackout, there were two serious accidents where vehicles catapulted into the stalls that were left at the end of the broad section of the roadway.
There is also a mistake in the transition coming out of the Good Hope cremation site and Fullworks Auto Spares junction, whereby the transition lane is placed on the wrong side of the median but all these are overlooked. One of my greatest questions is, where are the comments from the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE) or any of the senior reputable engineers of this country on this?
They are supposed to be watchdogs for engineering projects but they are toothless poodles, like the consultants. The signature of this highway to hell is the lack of engineered lighting design which would have adequately lit the roadway in the night and reduced blind spots.
A proper road engineer would tell you to either put good lights or no lights on a road as this becomes a hazard. The MPI cannot defend my points highlighted because they have not done such designs and simply plucked an existing duck and placed it in the pot.
But little do they know that each type and manufacturer of lights have their own unique properties which would define the placement and height of lamp poles. This malpractice is adopted across Guyana with confident ignorance and only political gains to accomplish.
Finally, on this “hellway”, I would like to let the MPI know that the lack of consultant oversight will lead to long-term disaster on some of the drainage structures which were not done to even the locally adopted construction standards as I have witnessed uncompacted backfill being done to a few culverts and all engineers know the importance of compacting backfill and for those who know, I suggest that they inform the consultant on this road project.
I forgot to mention the gross neglect of temporary diversion signs during construction which should have been in place until the final road markings and signs were erected but this was not done and is yet another instance of malpractice which led to many disastrous accidents which went uncompensated by the contractor and blindsided by the consultants.
Who has to bear the nightmare both physically and financially of this hellway? Yes, it is us the regular taxpayers. We have to pay for the sloppy work and feel it even more when there are accidents.
The MPI acted like a lost dog for the entire project and still have no clue that they have been delivered yet another Chinese failure akin to the 69KV GPL lines and interconnecting substations which were subject to endless politicised football blame games and the Skeldon Horror House. But all politicians can do in the time of disaster is point their rotten fingers on the other guy and absorb the insanity. Wake up Guyana!
Sincerely,
Name provided
