Traffic congestion in and out of the Great Diamond Housing Scheme on the East Bank of Demerara will significantly ease with the highly-anticipated opening of the alternative access road to Mocha today.
The road is scheduled to be opened by President Dr Irfaan Ali at 06:00h, in time to be used by commuters during the morning rush hour.
A section of the Diamond to Mocha Road (Stabroek News Photo)
The $500 million project, which was undertaken by the Housing and Water Ministry, started earlier this year and was completed months ago.
It was being used by commuters for a few days but a fatal accident resulted in authorities blocking the road until the official opening.
But this was stalled due to the construction of a bridge to the tune of $95.3 million to allow for the better flow of traffic from Diamond to Eccles. It is intended to eliminate bottlenecks. This cost is separate from the $500 million allocated for the bypass road.
Construction of the bridge has commenced and is expected to be completed next month, following which, the alternative road will be officially opened to the public.
The bypass road will run from Sixth Avenue, Diamond, to the Winsor Estate Road that leads on to the Eccles Landfill Site Road, connecting through the new Herstelling Housing Scheme and other schemes that are being developed along the EBD corridor.
Preparations for the opening being done on the road on Sunday
Meanwhile, works are simultaneously ongoing for the extension of that alternative road from Eccles to Mandela Avenue. That $2.3 million project is scheduled to be completed soon.
These projects come on the heels of the India-funded Bypass Road Project which would link the East Bank Demerara corridor to the East Coast of Demerara, creating a new highway in the backlands.
The Indian Government had provided a US$50 million Line of Credit (LOC) for the road link that was initially slated for Ogle, ECD to Diamond. However, the project cost was driven up to over $208 million by the previous APNU/AFC regime and the project was at a standstill for several years.
The Ali-led PPP/C Administration has since redesigned the project into three phases to fit the LOC. It will now run from Ogle to Haags Bosch at Eccles in the first phase, then from Eccles to Diamond, and finally from Diamond to Timehri to connect to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).
