Portmore residents disgruntled about the Portmore leg of Highway 2000 want the operators of the toll road to reinvest at least five per cent of the receipts in the development of the municipality.

“Since you have forced something down our throats, at least give back something to Portmore,” Keith Hinds, Portmore mayoral candidate for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), said at a forum looking at the controversial toll road last Thursday.

The well-attended forum was held by the Management Institute National Development (MIND) at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston under the theme ‘The Toll Road. Did we get it right?’

Presenter Kingsley Thomas, chairman of the National Road Operating and Construction Company (NROCC), while outlining the positives of the new highway, conceded that the upgrading of Marcus Drive should have coincided with the completion of the Portmore leg of the toll road.

“One factor we did not get right was the harmonisation of the timing to improve the Marcus Garvey Drive exit,” Thomas told the audience. “There are problems with the access at the Portmore leg. work has commenced and that situation will be solved sooner than later.”

But Portmore residents, upset about the peak-hour bottleneck at Marcus Garvey Drive and Ferry crossing at the Mandela Highway, charged that the Portmore leg was being used as a cash cow to help finance other sections of the road.

The residents strongly voiced concerns about the inadequate exits and rumours of a pending increase of the toll from $60 to $70 per motor car.

“What I have a difficulty with is that the toll road should have been running parallel to Mandela Highway and the causeway remained as the alternative, we would not have this problem,” Hinds said.

He suggested that the funds reinvested from the toll be used in the maintenance of drains and roads within the Portmore municipality.

Another Portmore resident contended that the Government had no option but to increase the toll to $70 per car, as that was the amount agreed with the highway developers and operators at the onset.

Motorists now pay a minimum of $60 to use the road.

The toll operators, he said, were nonetheless receiving the agreed $70, which included a $10 subsidy per vehicle. He also said that the Government was subsidising the toll payments to the tune of $10 million per month.

“They are holding off granting the increase as long as they can for political expediency. The operators are due the increase now,” Hinds said.

“You did not get it right,” asserted Yvonne McCormack, chairperson of the Portmore Citizens’ Advisory Council. She said that NROCC reneged on a promise to provide an alternative route for Portmore residents, adding that it has now resulted in Portmore residents being asked to “pay $60 to park”, a reference to the morning peak hour traffic jam on the toll road.

But Thomas, in an animated and riveting presentation, told the gathering that providing an alternative route was an option and not a requirement in the construction of toll roads worldwide.

“Mexico did it to their peril. Belgium did it to their peril,” Thomas said, adding that in those cases there was not enough traffic to sustain the toll roads.

He said that in Jamaica the social impact was given consideration, thus ensuring that the poor still had a road.

He explained that the fees charged for the Portmore leg were predicated on the construction of a modern six-lane bridge which would cost more than a purely land-based road.