Thursday, February 26 2009

Uriah Butler Main Road! Along several parts of its route, this road is not functioning as a highway. A highway that is of freeway standard should have no at-grade access (direct road access), and one that is of expressway standard should have very limited at-grade access. For the reader’s understanding, I now explain some important terms.

Arterial roads are the main transport routes within the road hierarchy. Their function is for movement and they operate under the following conditions: there is no direct access to premises; any development is set well back from the highway; all access to premises are provided via collector roads; the number of intersections is minimised; pedestrians are not permitted; and there is no stopping or parking on the carriageways. When there is no at-grade intersection these roads are known as freeways, and when there are limited at-grade intersections they are called expressways.

On some arterial roads there may be a relaxation of the direct access and pedestrian constraints, and in exceptional circumstances large individual developments may have direct access, and these are known as secondary or minor arterial roads, to differentiate them from primary or major arterial roads.

NO FREEWAY

The Uriah Butler Highway (UBH) cannot be considered a freeway because there are several at-grade intersections, and it is an expressway. However, its ability to retain its function as an expressway has been rapidly deteriorating with the many unapproved private accesses along the route. For example, on the northbound carriageway for about 1.5km north of the Bejucal Canal in the area known as Guayamare Village, there are several businesses consisting of storage yards for semi-truck trailers (with some of these trailers parked on the edge of the road shoulder, several used auto parts and scrap-yards, a tyre dealership, as well as a couple of dwelling houses. The situation is so bad that almost the entire stretch of these properties merge directly with the carriageway, so that vehicles can (and do) access the highway at any point that they wish. A similar situation exists on the eastbound carriageway of the Beetham Highway with a scrap metal dealer near the Civilian Conservation Corps. Several makeshift pedestrian walkways have been built in the median of the UBH in this area so that workers and customers can easily access from either carriageway. It is also not uncommon for pedestrians to await transport on the shoulders. So the highway is functioning as a main road.

When the UBH was designed, parallel frontage roads were to be provided on either side of the UBH as done west of the northbound carriageway in the Warner Village area, and on the east side of the southbound carriageway in the Divali Nagar area.

So many of these unapproved land use activities are perhaps being carried out on the proposed frontage road reserves.

TRAFFIC LAWS



It is like the highway and road traffic laws have become optional. This reminds me of a speed hump built on one-half of a two lane two-way road. Motorists travelling on the lane in which the hump is placed have the choice of going over the hump, or if there is little or traffic in the opposite direction, of avoiding it altogether. What do you think the motorist will do? The traffic in the opposite direction is analogous to traffic enforcement. If there is little or no enforcement, the hump will be avoided, until it could be completed across the entire road.

In 1987-88, the authorities determined that there would no longer be any illegal accesses or advertising hoardings on the UBH and Solomon Hochoy Highway, and dug up and removed all of them. Since then, these activities have flourished seemingly unabated. Perhaps, the authorities are worried about legal injunctions, and the sluggish judicial processes. However, urgent action is required if the highway is to function effectively as an expressway, and eventually as a freeway. What is the point of an elaborate high speed freeway-type interchange at the intersection of the UBH and the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, only to connect with a much lower standard road with serious safety concerns?



Rae Furlonge is a traffic and transport engineer.