THE Ministry of Transport and Works is now finalising the design work for the Montego Bay bypass road, before taking the proposal to Cabinet for approval.

“We have a prospect of doing the construction in the very near future but we are now actively looking at getting the design work completed and finalised,” transport minister Peter Phillips, told the Observer this week.

The bypass, which is expected to alleviate traffic along the city’s major roadways and provide a link between the first and second legs of the North Coast Highway project, will be a tolled road.

The initial proposal was a two-lane road that would begin in the vicinity of Westgate, to the south and travelling via the interior roads and eventually end up near the Sangster International Airport.

But the plan has changed over the years and it is now being proposed to begin further south, in the vicinity of the Pye River cemetery. This expansion is expected to prevent bottlenecks as traffic flows off the North Coast Highway onto Howard Cooke Boulevard.

The original cost being mooted for the two-lane roadway was about US$25 million.

According to an Observer source, the newer design would run about double that cost. But Phillips said that it was too early to put a price tag on the project as the design was not yet complete.

The Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry has lobbied for the bypass road for years, as they see it as a way to ease the traffic snarls that now threaten to strangle the city.