THE Malaysian and Jamaican governments yesterday signed a letter of intent for the financing of the $3.64-billion (US$70 million) Montego Bay bypass. Work is expected to begin within a year.

The Malaysian government will provide about 60 per cent of the money for the project (roughly $2.184-billion/US$42-million), which will serve as a link between the first and second segments of the North Coast Highway.

At the signing in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Prime Minister P J Patterson said more technical studies, costing and design work, as well as the necessary land acquisition, would have to be done.

But some Montego Bay spokesmen, who have long been at the forefront of the calls for the toll road, are now suggesting that it might not be the best option.

“As I told the prime minister in a letter, I have great misgivings about the road going over the Salt Spring hill,” said businessman Winston Dear, formerly one of the main proponents of the tolled bypass.

He added that trucks and other heavy machinery, which the bypass was aimed at rerouting from the city’s main streets, would have a hard time going over the Salt Spring hill and would therefore avoid the toll road. This, he said, would decrease the viability of the billion-dollar project.

According to Dear, he remains unclear if the last route that was proposed is still in effect; but if it is, it is now outdated with the ongoing dualisation of the Howard Cooke Boulevard and the housing development at Bogue.

Based on the old route, the bypass would start at Westgate, go through Adelphi, Greenpond, Salt Spring and exit at Ironshore.

Dear contended that the new housing development would bring increased traffic from the Bogue end, and bottlenecks would be created.

He suggested that instead of the construction of the 12 kilometre bypass, Queens Drive (Top Road) should be widened to take three lanes of traffic, and a tolled tunnel be put in from the Old Fort Craft Market to the Sangster International Airport.

President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, who stressed that planning is “dynamic”, said the new idea was worthy of consideration.

“Maybe we didn’t really believe we would get Howard Cooke dualised, so therefore we really (only) needed an alternative route from the airport,” he said.

Kerr-Jarrett added that the Chamber has been trying, for almost a year, to get an indication of the proposed route of the bypass. He said they were eagerly awaiting further details on the project from Member of Parliament for North West St James, Dr Horace Chang, who is among those in the Malaysian delegation.