THE new traffic signals at the entrance to Caymanas Bay, off the Mandela Highway in St Catherine, were yesterday brought into service at their new location between the Portmore crossing and the original Caymanas Bay access road.

This is where the north-south link of Highway 2000 will end as the Government and its Chinese partners press ahead with the completion of that corridor.

The US$600-million highway being built by China Harbour Engineering Company was supposed to be opened this month, but Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, during a tour of sections of the road in October last year, said the opening would instead happen within the first three months of the year.

The 66-kilometre highway from Caymanas to Ocho Rios in St Ann should shorten the time taken from Kingston to the resort town of Ocho Rios from two hours to less than an hour.

The project is being done in three segments: Caymanas to Linstead, St Catherine (section one); Linstead to Moneague in St Ann (section two); and Moneague to Ocho Rios.

In the meantime, the Jamaica Observer understands that the long-discussed widening of the Mandela Highway is to get underway in earnest once the north-south link is complete.

“It is still on the table and we are going to be moving full speed ahead with it [and] work should start this year. Work has been going on, but it’s just that you don’t see the usual tractors and trucks,” communications manager at the National Works Agency (NWA) Stephen Shaw said. This will make the now four-lane corridor into a six-lane highway.

According to the transport and work’s ministry’s strategic business plan, the project is to be carried out under a second Major Infrastructure Development Programme (MIDP) loan of US$300 million through the China EXIM Bank. Some of the other corridors to benefit from those funds include Barbican Road, Hagley Park Road, Constant Spring Road, and Ferris Cross to Mackfield in Westmoreland.

— Alphea Saunders