Flyovers could take a back seat for now as Government prioritises the repair of the many roads and bridges across rural Barbados that are in an “awful” state.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, speaking to a packed audience filled with Barbadians in the diaspora at the St Francis College Auditorium in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday night, said while Government was satisfied there was a need for flyovers at certain roundabouts to abate the heavy flow of traffic, it did not have the fiscal space to implement all that was initially proposed while focusing on the expansive road repairs needed.
“We have a whole slew of bridges in St Joseph, St Andrew, St John and St Lucy and in particular the Scotland District that have not been touched for 60, 70 or 80 years.
“So, you would appreciate that if we have limited space and limited [fiscal] room, that our first priority has to be to that infrastructure as well as to ensure that those other roads that have not been repaved, like Highway 1 that cost us $15 million between the bottom of University Drive and by Holetown Methodist Church, [are done].”
She added: “It doesn’t make any sense us doing Holetown Methodist Church to St James Parish Church in the next two years. We expect the hotel at the old Discovery Bay site to start construction at the end of the year, but we do want to be able to do Highway 7 this year which is in an awful, awful state, and we do want to be able to do the other part between St James Parish Church and Speightstown, St Peter.”
Mottley said she highlighted those roads as they perhaps represented two of the worst in Barbados, because no work was done on them for a significant period.
She also said there was talk about whether they should build a highway from Searles in Christ Church to St Thomas Parish Church.