MONTEGO BAY, St James — As part of a strategy to ease traffic congestion in the city of Montego Bay, at least four new traffic lights are being installed at a cost of $66 million. Located close to each other, the positioning of the lights is expected to alter the flow of traffic.

“It’s a part of the plan to take people out of the city centre who don’t need to be there,” community relations officer for the National Works Agency’s (NWA) western region Janel Ricketts told the Jamaica Observer.

Work began about a week ago and is expected to last for three months.

“[Installation is] going to be sometime next year but there are other attendant issues such as the relocation of some lines and so on, so we’ll be working with the JPS as well,” Ricketts said.

In Norwood, lights are being installed in Middle Road as well as the Felicity Road intersection. There is another set being installed a few metres away at the intersection with Green Pond Road. The fourth will be placed at the intersection of Rosemount and Green Pond roads.

“If you want to bypass the town, those are some critical intersections that we are trying to make easier to navigate,” Ricketts explained. “The points where we are putting the lights, persons are already using those routes as unofficial routes to avoid the traffic, so where we are putting the lights… it will facilitate for an easier flow of traffic.”

Councillor Richard Vernon (Jamaica Labour Party, Montego Bay South Division) welcomed the news. The soon-to-be-installed lights will be on the outskirts of the division he represents.

“There is a lot of congestion in the area as persons try to move along Felicity, through the Sun Valley space, along these various roadways in the general area. A lot of high-volume traffic would occur at peak hours and that would have caused much congestion because persons would try to get into the space before other motorists, which sometimes lead to a gridlock,” he said.

The lights, he noted, have been a long time in coming.

“I’m happy that it’s finally being done. We have requested these lights for quite some time, probably about three to four years now. We have been looking at the area and we noticed that it is a highly trafficked area. We made the recommendations for some stop lights to be there and it’s finally there now,” he stated.

According to Vernon, the project has been made possible through the collaborative efforts of the St James Municipal Corporation, Members of Parliament Horace Chang and Heroy Clarke along with other stakeholders.

“I know it will serve the purpose that it is being installed to do, which is manage the traffic in the area,” the councillor said.

Taxi operator Ainsworth Richards, who plies the Montego Bay to Flower Hill route, has also welcomed news of the plan to install the traffic lights.

“I would like to see it function because of the amount of traffic that traverse this way,” he said, adding that in the past he has had to seek alternative routes when that area becomes congested.

He has suggested that there should be a police presence at the lights once they are installed, to prevent the type of unruly behaviour he has observed at other traffic signals.

For Matthew, who sells soup in the area, he is hoping the lights will reduce the number of traffic mishaps.

“It will work out because a morning time the traffic is so heavy and, hear what happen now, nuff time some minor accident happen, so the lights can help. It will work out because police can’t deh here so all the while,” he said.