Millions of dollars are lost because of the daily waiting time commuters crossing the existing Demerara Harbour Bridge are forced to endure but President Dr. Irfaan Ali has assured Guyanese that these woes will be reduced with the new Demerara River crossing.
Based on figures provided by the Head of State, each of the 22,000 vehicles travelling across the bridge on a daily basis lose a minimum of two hours because of traffic congestion on the decades-old bridge and existing highways.
And he explained that it is not just that people are forced to endure long waiting times but this has a domino effect on their productivity.
“If you take a financial value on that, you will see the tens of millions of dollars we lose annually,” President Ali lamented on Wednesday night.
He, however, said that this will soon change as the government is building a new four-lane Demerara River crossing.
On Wednesday, hours before the President’s address at the Independence celebrations at Damon Square in Anna Regina, a US $260 million contract was signed with a Chinese joint venture – China Railway Construction Corporation Limited – to construct the bridge.
This crossing will be the largest infrastructural transport project ever undertaken in Guyana to be funded by the government.
And President Ali emphasised that the benefits of the bridge are well worth the cost. It is expected to improve the productivity of the commuters from Regions Two and Three, who travel to the capital city of Georgetown or the wider Region Four.
He also noted that with the reduction in excess waiting times, people would be able to spend more time with their families and participate in community life.
“Development and prosperity must bring with it an improvement in your quality of life and you cannot have an improvement in the quality of life if you are sitting for three hours, four hours in traffic,” the Head of State reasoned.
Meanwhile, other major projects include the forthcoming gas-to-energy development, which is expected to halve the cost of electricity and the expansion of Guyana’s urban road network.
