Dear Editor,
The government’s plan to extend the East Berbice-Corentyne two-lane road into a four-lane highway is an important and much-needed development that residents have longed for since the present main road was built in the late 1960s. Indeed, it is clearly needed to alleviate the traffic congestion that beleaguers the main road in some areas, such as the Rose Hall Town to Port Mourant stretch, so it should be built where it will best serve the region safely and sustainably.
In many parts, the existing main road passes through densely populated villages and areas where businesses, schools, and pedestrians are all within a few metres off the traffic lanes. Extending this 14-15 m wide asphalt road to four lanes would mean narrowing drainage networks, removing bridges, approaching close to property lines and safe spaces, and bringing kinetic traffic in risky proximity to homes and businesses. Even now, vehicles sometimes careen off the road into people’s yards, as happened twice in Rose Hall Town from as far back as the 1970s when there were fewer vehicles on the road, and in other areas. Doubling the lanes in places where the corridor is too narrow would increase those risks and leave little room for future drainage works, parking, pedestrian walkway, and utility upgrades.
On the other hand, the area south of the current road, from Borlam to Adventure and further east, consists mostly of open savannahs, and agricultural and aquacultural lands. This southern corridor offers a safer and more forward-looking path: a spanking new four-lane highway built south of and parallel to the existing main road. Such a route would avoid disrupting residents, relieve traffic through the towns and villages, and open up new lands for housing, businesses, small and large industries, and community expansion, and become an economic boost for the region. It would also be more climate-resilient, further inland, less flood-prone, and on higher ground, especially on the high sand reef areas.
With sea level rise and climate change already affecting Guyana’s coastal plain, major infrastructure should be built with the next fifty years in mind. I have roughly estimated that with the current rate of sea level rise, the sea might reach the Rose Hall Town pump station by the 2070s. The arrow-straight 6.5-mile Seawell Turn to Borlam Turn stretch, which already runs through mostly open lands, could be widened in place, but east of Borlam, a southern bypass would be a better choice. This dual approach, maintaining and rehabilitating the existing road for local access and developing a new one inland for regional traffic, is what many countries adopt when urban congestion and coastal risks coastal squeeze increase. East Berbice-Corentyne certainly needs a modern, safe, and climate-resilient highway system. It should be built in places where it will serve both today’s needs and tomorrow’s generations.