Each week day during the school term, Gilbert Green walks half-mile up the steep hill to Paisley All-Age School in Luna district, St Mary. He’s been doing it for so long – more than a decade – that he’s grown to accept that it will not change.

But it irritates the hell out of him. Because Green, the school’s principal since 1989, is forced to park his Nissan Sunny motorcar in the Border Square (so named because it sits on the St Mary/St Andrew border) and make the excruciating walk to his job, all because the road is just awful.

“I used to drive my car up to Luna when I lived at the (teachers’) cottage, but the roads were destroying it, and when it rained I had to leave it by somebody’s house,” Green told the Sunday Observer.

The teachers’ cottage is located close to the school on a road down the hill and is owned and operated by the school.

Green’s experience is not unique to him. Talk to almost anyone in St Mary and you’ll hear similar complaints about the absolutely terrible roads in that parish and the many unfulfilled promises by the authorities to have them repaired.

“I have lived here for 10 years and the road has always been like this,” said one man who gave his name only as C Richards as he slowly drove a van loaded with construction material down the hill.

Further down the road, by a little shop, Ludlow Sadler pointed to a section of the road that had broken away years ago and where vehicles were at risk of running off the road into a house below.

“From I was 10 them say them was going to put up a wall. I am now 45 and nothing has been done. They don’t handle us nice ‘roun’ here,” Sadler said.

Icilda Williams, who said she has been living in Luna for four decades, agreed. “At nights when I coming back from church, it’s dark and if little rain dew sometimes you make a slip and fall down,” she told the Sunday Observer. “In the 40 years I have lived here, is one time I see them throw a little asphalt on the road and that was over 30 years ago.”

Ironically, Luna is one of the most picturesque sections of the island. From the Paisley All-Age School, on a clear day, Highgate, the Annotto Bay coastline, and the entire length of the Blue Mountain range on the Portland side are visible. The school grounds also offer commanding views of sections of St Catherine and Clarendon.

Luna is basically a farming community with an estimated population of about 3,000 people. But many of its residents are construction workers, chefs and mechanics who travel daily to jobs in the Corporate Area.

However, the dirt and stone track that passes for a road in Luna makes the journey through the fairly large district tortuous and slow.

Two weeks ago, the Sunday Observer experienced first-hand, the agony of the Luna traveller.

The drive through the district in a four-wheel drive SUV was bumpier than a horse and buggy ride.

But the vehicle managed to make it to the top of the hill – to the Paisley All-Age School – which has 245 students on roll and a daily attendance of 225.

Principal Green recalled his struggles to get the dirt road to the school constructed.

“I appealed to the politicians and the Public Works to construct a road,” he explained. “They came and looked and surveyed, then the ministries of works and education held a meeting at which they concluded that the school had to be relocated. After the Jamaica Teachers’ Association conference in 1997, I spoke to the Parent Teachers’ Association (PTA) and we put a group together called the Progressive Action Committee (PAC).”

With some assistance from Councillor Laurel Thompson, Vernon Robinson, the then member of parliament for West Rural St Andrew, businessman Neal Seaton, and money raised by the PAC, a road on which motor vehicles could drive was cut.

“We cut a drive road from the St Andrew border square to the school and cottage and joined the road at Luna,” Green said. “The works ministry projected the cost of the road at $14 million, but with the help of the community, who came with their machetes and shovels, it cost us $500,000.”

But that was 14 years ago.

When the Sunday Observer contacted Harry Douglas, in whose South East St Mary constituency Luna sits, he said that the roads there, as well as those in Leinster, Mount Rose and Scotts Hall are slated for resurfacing. In addition, Douglas said proper drainage would be installed.

However, Douglas, it appears, will have his hands full just trying to repair badly deteriorated roads in his constituency. Because those the Sunday Observer encountered in Camberwell, another farming district which he represents, were even worse.

Large, yawning holes, sometimes stretching the full width of the roads, were not uncommon. Others could easily be mistaken for river beds as large stones jutted out of the uneven surfaces.

Camberwell residents told the Sunday Observer that last year they staged a protest in Annotto Bay to highlight their frustration at the state of their roads, but they were tear-gassed by the police.

Money to repair the roads, they said, was negotiated through the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) in 2001.

A social impact assessment of Camberwell done by the JSIF in 2001 describes the district as a Quartile Four community (the poorest economic classification given by Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).

The assessment also determined that erosion of the roads, which were built in the 1970s, had resulted in the farmers having to pay as much as $400 for transportation that should normally cost $50. The farmers also had to grapple with spillage and bruising of their produce because of the bad roads.

“Taxis plying the route break springs frequently,” said one woman who gave her name as Stacey Ann. “The poor condition of the roads also makes it very difficult for the many children who attend schools such as St Mary High, Marymount, St Mary Technical High School, Annotto Bay High, Brimmer Vale and Islington.”

Lorna Hanniford, principal of the Camberwell All-Age School, said that the community had initially applied through the PTA to the JSIF for funds to fix the roads, after which they formed a citizens’ association.

“The Camberwell Citizens’ Association was started when it was realised that it was necessary to get the work done on the roads,” Hanniford explained.

The JSIF briefly began working on the road in 2001, but stopped after heavy rains and a reassessment showed that the repair cost had almost tripled, Hanniford said.

Yvonne Campbell, a senior teacher at the school and liaison officer for the citizens’ association, said that communication between the community and the JSIF has been infrequent and they did not know if the road would still be built.

“Mr Karl McKenzie said that work on the road would have started in September, 2002,” Campbell said. “Three to four weeks ago, he said that the project was before the board. But in June last year it was also before the board.”

McKenzie, when contacted, told the Sunday Observer that work on the road was expected to resume in the latter part of this year.

“We are not neglecting the community,” he said, “but there is a process that has to be followed.”

He said that the rains changed the configuration of the road and increased the cost, “so we stopped the contract, as we had no approval for the additional cost”.

Omar Sweeney, operations manager at JSIF, said that the Camberwell road had originally been projected to cost $12 million. Reassessment after the rains added $18 million to the original cost, putting it outside the ceiling of projects the JSIF could execute, he said.

Sweeney said that the JSIF was initiating dialogue with the National Works Agency (NWA) to try and tap into flood damage funds to assist in completing the project.

The JSIF said that it was also considering projects at Jobs Hill and Top Leinster.

“In the case of Jobs Hill, JSIF has been approached to sponsor the rehabilitation of 5.8 km of roadway from Mount Charles to Jobs Hill,” the JSIF said.

“However, the estimated cost of this project is approximately $30 million, which, as is the case with the Camberwell Road project, is out of our range.”

But, according to Patrick Wong, senior technical officer in the Ministry of Local Government, US$14 million has been budgeted under the Parish Infrastructure Development Programme to repair approximately 195 kilometres of roads islandwide by the end of this year.

Districts like Luna and Camberwell will benefit from this programme, other government officials said.