THE second leg of the Highway 2000 project that will link St Catherine to St Ann has taken on new urgency as an alternative link between the island’s main economic centres, following yet another incident of flooding and subsequent one-day closure of the Bog Walk Gorge.

Within two weeks, the recommendations of a technical review on alternatives to the gorge is to be placed before Prime Minister PJ Patterson from a team comprising National Works Agency, and French firms Bouygues Travaux and TransJamaican Highway – developer/owner of the Highway 2000 toll road.

Their assessment covers more than one option, and while NWA was not specific about the alternatives, the review is likely to have considered improvements required for the current alternatives – the Barry and Sligoville roads.

“Basically what we are looking at is whether or not we could utilise existing corridors to create an alternative to the Bog Walk Gorge,” Petra-Kene Williams, the National Works Agency’s communications officer, told the Sunday Observer Friday.

At the same time, a Bouygues-TransJamaican team has recently completed a feasibility study on the second leg of the three-pronged toll highway, which is also under consideration as an option to the gorge.

“The feasibility study related to doing the highway from Bushy Park to Ocho Rios and we are now looking at various other options that we could implement,” she said.

“The NWA anticipates that given the progress of the discussions in another couple of weeks we should be able to present the final recommendations on the matter to the prime minister.”

She explained that the feasibility study had been conducted in light of the recent heavy rains that left the Bog Walk Gorge, which currently provides the main link between the capital and the north coast, impassable.

The last incident was as recent as Tuesday when some 200 motorists were trapped in the gorge overnight by rising flood waters associated with a tropical depression, having ignored warnings by road and disaster agencies to avoid what is normally the shortest link between Kingston and Montego Bay.

“With the change in weather conditions that we have been experiencing recently it has become necessary for us to look at a long term solution or alternative to the Bog Walk Gorge, which has been flooded and damaged on several occasions,” said Williams.

But, aside from its rising river and falling rocks, the gorge has an historic bridge, the narrow and low Flat Bridge, that allows only single lane traffic flow which is inevitably subsumed by flood waters when the river rises.

Transport and works minister Robert Pickersgill has proposed Sligoville, a hilly, narrow road that winds through an elevated area of St Catherine, as the replacement link between Jamaica’s two most important economic hubs, Kingston and Montego Bay.

“It does not suffer from the same kind of erosion or inundation that the gorge is subject to and that is clear for everyone to see,” said Pickersgill last month as government totted up the cost to repair damage and fallout from rains associated with Hurricane Wilma.

“It is a scenic route; hilly yes, but it is easier to maintain and is only an additional 10 minutes drive. The amount of repair and attendant cost that we have put into the Bog Walk Gorge, is not so with Sligoville.”

Motorists tend to prefer the Sligoville road over the flatter Barry route when the gorge is blocked, because of the shorter travel time.

The Bushy Park-Ocho Rios option would require the cutting of a new road, and is likely to take longer to deliver.

williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com