MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Member of Parliament for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips is suggesting that some parochial roads in and around Mandeville be upgraded to main roads following the recent traffic changes here.

“I would appeal to the Government to look at municipal council roads, like in the Marshall’s Pen area and Brumalia area, those areas now where persons traverse to bypass Caledonia Road and the town itself. There [needs to be] some look at the upgrade of those roads’ surfaces. Many of them are all riddled with potholes and need some additional debushing and some widening in some instances,” he told journalists in Greenvale, Manchester, on Friday.

As part of the near $75- million Greater Mandeville Traffic Management System, Caledonia Road now functions on a one-way system from the direction of Scotiabank to the New Green Road intersection.

The section of Manchester Road between Scotiabank and Sinclair’s Bargain Centre has also been converted into a one-way stretch.

Other changes through the Mandeville Traffic Management Improvement Plan is the opening of the median along Main Street to allow traffic from North Race Course Road and at Villa Road.

Phillips, who is also Opposition spokesperson on transport and works, said McKinley Road, Brumalia Road, Wint Road, West Road, and Marshall’s Drive have an increase in traffic as motorists access the town of Mandeville.

“These are now used as main roads to bypass the traffic changes that have taken place because the truth is if you want to go to Mandeville Hospital, what you are doing is sending people into the town to come back around,” he said in reference to using Main Street and South Race Course Road.

“If you don’t know how to go to Brumalia Road turning on to Wint Road, most people don’t know that [route]. Otherwise, they have to go back out on the Winston Jones Highway then come down on a back road to get into the town of Mandeville. Some of those intricacies should have been thought out. Some assessments should be done and see where improvement can be made,” added Phillips.

He pointed to the need to address road safety concerns on the parochial roads.

“When you come off of McKinley Road and go onto Wint Road, that intersection itself is one that a lot of accidents [happen]. There needs to be some upgrading, not only to the road surface, but to these intersections, ensuring that we have adequate signage, concave mirrors installed. Another is the monitoring of the police in these areas,” said Phillips.

He commended the implementation of the traffic management system, but said the next phase is urgently needed.

“We always commend any infrastructural improvement to the town of Mandeville. My take on this one is that it took such a long time…There could have been more public education on the implementation; it wasn’t until the weekend of the implementation that we saw a press release going out, which caught a lot of the road users by surprise,” said Phillips.

“I think there needs to be a relook at the Main Street section, because before the traffic changes the town centre of Mandeville was chaotic. You have all the public passenger vehicles terminating in the town of Mandeville, so you are adding more vehicles on that chaos already. I understand that there is another phase to come, that phase needs to be done in a shorter space of time so that we can ease some of what we are seeing,” added Phillips.