MONTEGO BAY, St James — Communications and Customer Services manager at the National Works Agency (NWA) Stephen Shaw has warned that motorists will experience delays in travelling in and around the city of Montego Bay as of tomorrow, when the rehabilitation of a section of the usually busy Howard Cooke Boulevard begins.

“There will be delays in spite of the measures that we are going to implement to assist with the traffic movement,” Shaw told the Jamaica Observer West shortly after a recent press conference held at the St James Parish Council Municipal Building to sensitise the public about the planned $14-million project, and the impact the work will have on the travelling public.

Funded by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), the work, which will be undertaken on a section of the corridor in the vicinity of Martina’s Juice Bar and Grill, is expected to last for three months.

It involves the excavation of road surface, raising the sunken areas and asphalting of the affected section of the roadway.

Additionally, the project includes the construction of curb and channel, repairs to the median and the construction of sidewalks.

“We are going to be fixing about 160 metres of this road on both carriageways of the road, so we’re looking at over 300 metres of road when we are through,” Shaw said.

Constructed more than 10 years ago, the Howard Cooke Boulevard is a dual carriageway, which is heavily used by commuters entering and exiting the resort city of Montego Bay.

Shaw told journalists recently that in an effort to ease the expected traffic congestion, a traffic management system would be implemented for the duration of the project.

This, he said, will include, allowing dual carriage on both sides during peak hours between 6:00 am and 9:00 am and after 3:00 pm, and single lane from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Repair work, he added, will also be undertaken on the roadway in the neighbouring Catherine Hall community to lessen the anticipated inconvenience by residents and students of several schools in the area.

He also announced that the northern gate leading off the Catherine Hall main road into the MegaMart complex would be closed.

Additionally, Shaw said, between 6:00am and 9:00 am, there will be two lanes of traffic from the Fairfield end of the city heading into Barnett Street, and the reverse in the afternoons “to assist with the traffic movement”.

Mayor of Montego Bay Glendon Harris, in acknowledging that there will be traffic delays during the period of work, urged commuters to leave out at least an hour earlier than they normally would, “so that they can get through in good time, despite the inconvenience of what is going to happen”.

He also urged commuters travelling in and around the city to exercise caution and patience during the period of work, noting that the upgrade of the roadway is timely and necessary.

“This is a project that we have long called for, so I am urging the commuters to exercise some amount of patience and caution,” Harris said.

Meanwhile, Minister of State in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce Sharon Ffolkes Abrahams, who is also the Member of Parliament for West Central St James, in welcoming the project, noted that activities in the Montego Bay Free Zone, Freeport and Fairfield commercial centres will be affected, and encouraged persons to co-operate during the period of the project.

The Member of Parliament, whose constituency has seen a plethora of infrastructural development in recent years and several planned projects to come on stream soon, reiterated the need for a bypass road for the commercial district of Montego Bay.

“We definitely need the bypass urgently. When we consider the fact that the University of the West Indies will be opening up a campus in the Bogue area and ground will be broken very shortly, also the fact that we have the BPO [Business Processing Outsourcing] industry here that is growing, and the fact that persons who work in that area are coming from all over western Jamaica and other areas, so we need to have this bypass if we are going to accommodate the growth that we expect in the city,” she argued.