St Thomas gets first taste of new highway

Public transportation operators and other commuters who traverse the St Thomas to Kingston main road have received the first hint of what driving on the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project (SCHIP) will be like when the roadway is completed.

The National Works Agency (NWA) yesterday opened a section of the road, in the vicinity of Grants Pen. This means that persons will no longer traverse the rugged road that passes the entrance to the Grants Pen community.

According to the NWA, traffic is being diverted on to a section of the newly built roadway. It said that the diversion is being done to facilitate the commencement of works to create an embankment for the southern lanes in Grants Pen.

Motorists are glad for the opportunity to utilise the long-awaited improved roadway. One bus operator, Jermaine Harding, most commonly known as Cash Money, who plies the route from Yallahs to downtown Kingston, was among the motorists to use it yesterday.

"It nice man, and much better than the dust weh a kill we off down by the bottom road. We nuh have to wind up window and turn on AC when we touch up top. People can breathe fresh air," he said. Though access to the new thoroughfare, which stretches for approximately a mile, has just been granted, the bus operator spoke of his trips along the original alignment as a distant memory and a nightmare of the past.

"When we used to drive down a bottom road, everything pon yuh vehicle mash up and it nuh make sense you waste your time and repair it because as it fix it mash up back."

Harding told THE STAR that, though short, the stretch of road that bypasses the community of Grants Pen saves him at least 10 minutes off his usual trips to and from Kingston.

"It shave off a good portion off the journey because it takes all 20 minutes to navigate the bad roads especially when trucks on it. The highway not taking you more than five minutes to drive over," he said adding that there is no need for speed.

Acknowledging that it is just a small portion of a wider project and that there is much more work to be done, Harding marked the recently granted access as a sign of what is to come.

"It's a good look so far. The road smooth and nice. We just want it finish up now because then we will start to see more investors. You can't expect people to want to come if they are driving on river coast, so once the highway complete we will see the development.

Now that we up here, dem can't get we off no time at all. It permanent now, like filing," Harding said laughing.

The SCHIP, which stretches from St Andrew to Port Antonio, Portland, involves the construction of a four-lane highway from Harbour View roundabout to Albion in St Thomas.