Temporary reconstruction work finished at Argyle by-pass road

Just over one month after the Argyle by-pass road collapsed under heavy rains, the road is once again ready for use by motorists.

SEARCHLIGHT visited the by-pass road on Thursday where we met Minister of Transport and Works Senator Julian Francis who was out inspecting the road that was paved the day before.

He said that the road was done so that motorists could start using it again, {{more}}but there is still about 50 per cent more work needed to perfect the by-pass.

“We paved it yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) but it was too hot to open last night, and so we decided to take advantage of the delay in just cleaning and making sure that we get all the mud off the road because there is supposed to be a lot of rain coming in tonight and tomorrow… but it’s going to be ready,” said the Transport and Works Minister.

Senator Francis did not disclose the cost to repair the road, and stressed that the project is not completed. He also stated that the work done on the road is not the final solution to the problem but a convenient way to allow traffic to flow.

“It will stand up,” said Francis, while revealing that a large quantity of boulders, 20 to 25 feet deep were used to stabilize the portion of road that has been problematic since its construction.

Francis said that the specialists are designing the permanent fixes and in his opinion, it’s going to be expensive.

“There is a lot of mess you see down here that got to be dug out. We’ve released one of the underground drains and there are three more to be released so immediately as the new year opens, we will release those, but right now it’s filtering well. The water that’s coming out of the one we have is clean water. It means that there is very little slide or movement underneath there if any at all,” said Francis.

The Minster said that getting the road to 100 per cent is going to take a little while still, because the mud that makes up the embankment below the road has to be dug up and carted away after which a proper scientific solution will be found to stabilize the by-pass.

The temporary reconstruction work, which took one month, started on November 21 and finished on December 22, 2016.

The reconstruction was done by INNOTECH and the Ministry of Works with the help of the Cuban workers at the Argyle International Airport, who did the paving.

“We got the equipment from the airport, we got the stones from around the airport; INNOTECH provided their engineering services and our engineers supervised it.

It’s a good piece of road; just take your time coming around. It’s tempting and when a road is new, everybody wants to see how well they could corner. The surface has a better grip and the road should last for two or two and a half years until a permanent solution is built,” said Francis.(LC)