Residents of St Ann’s are not pleased with the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure’s plan to reconstruct the bridge on Coblentz Avenue. Many residents expressed concern about traffic issues once the bridge is closed for reconstruction.
The ministry held a public meeting for St Ann’s residents on Wednesday at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, where they disclosed the plans for the reconstruction and heard the residents’ concerns.
Latiff Mohammed, project manager with the Bridge, Landslips and Traffic (BLT) Management Programme Implementation Unit, said the reconstruction project was estimated to take 12 months and had a budget of approximately $27.2 million. Daleem General Contracting has been hired to carry out the project.
For years the bridge has been showing signs of deterioration. Some of the defects on the bridge include a rotting steel deck, corrosion of the steel beams and cracking of the abutments.
Some of the scope of works for the construction project include widening of the bridge at the junction of St Ann’s Road and Cascade Road where a culvert extension would be constructed adjacent to the existing beam bridge. A pedestrian walkway will be fabricated and erected as well.
Mohammed said the bridge would be closed to vehicular traffic for the duration of the project with a detour route via Cascade Road.
However, the detour requires an upgrade to accommodate the increased traffic volume. The bridge at the junction of St Ann’s Road and Cascade Road will be widened to allow for a smoother traffic flow. These works would be completed before the demolition of the existing bridge.
Mohammed said the new bridge would improve the traffic flow because a two-lane bridge would replace the existing single-lane steel beam bridge.
The residents are insisting the ministry put up a temporary Bailey bridge while the permanent bridge is under construction. A Bailey bridge is a type of portable, pre-fabricated bridge usually used in construction projects as a temporary measure for pedestrian and vehicular traffic. However, Mohammed stated, the Bailey bridge would not be feasible for vehicular traffic, but a pedestrian bridge would be fabricated before the existing bridge is demolished.
The residents called for a proper traffic management programme where traffic wardens are on the road from 6am to 5pm. Also, one resident suggested that the garbage collection trucks, including the city corporation trucks that collect large refuse, should be out of the area before 5am.
“The bridge has to be built, but whatever we do we have to see that it is not too severely impacting on our way out of here,” a resident said.