MONTEGO BAY, St James — The National Road Operating and Constructing Company (NROCC) has signalled that at least two segments of the Montego Bay bypass may be tolled.

It has been decided that there will be a toll plaza in the Irwin area of St James and a decision is pending on whether to toll the Long Hill bypass which can be used to access Westmoreland and beyond.

“The toll plaza for Montego Bay will be at Irwin. It’s actually close to the Fairfield Road interchange,” environmental manager at NROCC Errol Mortley told the St James chapter of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association (JHTA) on Tuesday during a project update.

“Say, for example, somebody going to Negril from the airport and they don’t want to go through Queens Drive or Jimmy Cliff Boulevard, they could take the toll road at the gas station and they would pay one toll going to Negril. But you would have to get off at Bogue to go Negril,” he added.

Mortley also spoke of how adjustments had been made to work being done on the now treacherous Long Hill Road to minimise impact on Rocklands Bird Sanctuary. The changes have led to a toll being considered for that area as well.

“That would push us about 500 metres towards the east into very high terrain, so that would require a lot of cuts, almost 60-70 metres of cuts and that would necessitate four lanes for a long section,” he disclosed.

“In fact, out of the 10 [kilometres], we would have had about six kilometres of four lane of passing lanes,” Mortley added.

He said NROCC was advised by design consultants that a tolled, four-lane road “would make more sense”.

However, when asked for details, NROCC Managing Director Stephen Edwards stressed that no final decision has been taken on charging a toll to use the Long Hill bypass.

“It’s something that we are looking at to see if that would be feasible. At the moment, it still remains not tolled,” Edwards told reporters after the meeting.

“We are also looking at the feasibility surrounding four lanes on that corridor as well,” he added.

There are also plans to look at adjusting the end of the bypass in Montpelier. Initially the plan was to exit in the vicinity of the gas station there but now NROCC is looking at coming out just beyond the Anchovy High campus.

However, for NROCC, these changes would mean bringing forward something that was bound to happen in the future as it relates to the design of the roadway.

“Initially when Long Hill was designed, it was designed for two lanes, one up and one down and idea was that in the future, that was always the plan, that it would be expanded in the future to four lanes,” Edwards explained.

“However, if we can do that now and bring that benefit to the people now, it should be considered,” he said.

Work on the Long Hill bypass is slated to begin after completion of the Montego Bay bypass.

The Long Hill bypass, the 15-kilometre MoBay bypass, the Barnett Street/West Green Avenue Road rehabilitation, and a comprehensive drainage study of the Montego Bay bypass area, all make up the US$274.5-million Montego Bay Perimeter Project being implemented by NROCC.

In March, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Parliament that the perimeter project is 30 per cent complete.