The current debate about the state of the nation’s roads is necessary and, hopefully, will lead to a conclusion that redounds to the country’s benefit.

As we have consistently argued in this space, the centrality of a well-functioning road network to national development is beyond dispute. Roads are not merely physical infrastructure; they are the arteries through which economic life flows. The efficient movement of people, goods, and services between communities, towns, and cities underpins productivity, investment, agriculture, tourism, and social cohesion. Where mobility is seamless and dependable, opportunity follows. Where it is not, stagnation takes root.

Jamaica, like many nations shaped by colonial and postcolonial administrative traditions, inherited a road network whose governance is divided between central and local authorities. While such an arrangement may once have been defensible, it is increasingly misaligned with the realities of a modern, growing country whose infrastructure demands have far outpaced institutional reform.

Though sections of the national road network have been improved over time, intellectual honesty demands acknowledgement that much of what exists today was never engineered to contemporary standards. Many roads evolved incrementally from bridle paths and footways, upgraded without proper foundations, drainage systems, or structural resilience. The result is a network — particularly at the parochial and farm road levels — that is structurally deficient, poorly drained, inadequately signed, and constructed with substandard materials.

These weaknesses are compounded by chronic under-maintenance, the accelerating stresses of climate change — marked by heavier rainfall and more intense heat — and acts of civic indiscipline, including the deliberate burning of road surfaces during protests. Public frustration is further aggravated when citizens seeking redress are confronted with bureaucratic deflection rooted in the fragmented division of responsibility between central and local authorities.

It is against this backdrop that the long-standing proposal for a single road authority merits serious and urgent reconsideration. This is not a novel idea. As far back as 2010 discussions were underway regarding the administrative and legislative arrangements necessary to establish such an entity. Even then parliamentarians lamented the deteriorating state of parochial roads and the persistent delays in the release of funds for their repair.

The rationale for a unified authority is straightforward: Consolidating responsibility for both main and parochial roads would enhance efficiency, reduce duplication, and introduce uniformed standards of construction, maintenance, and accountability.

Predictably, resistance has emerged, particularly from municipal authorities and certain local government actors, who argue that such reform would weaken local governance.

We find this argument unconvincing. More plausibly, the opposition reflects a desperate attempt by some local government politicians to retain discretionary control over public funds — a control that has too often translated into inefficiency, politicised spending, and poor outcomes.

We believe that the National Works Agency already possesses the technical mandate to construct and maintain roads to world-class standards. With adequate funding, staffing, operational autonomy, and robust safeguards for transparency and accountability, it is well placed to assume responsibility for the entire road network.

A single road authority, we hold, represents not a weakening of governance, but its rationalisation and a necessary step towards delivering infrastructure worthy of a modern Jamaica.

We should move to get this done.