New $230m Troy Bridge to be in place in 7 months

WESTERN BUREAU:

Commuters are set to benefit from a new and modernised $230-million Troy Bridge in approximately seven months, says Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Holness made the announcement on Friday afternoon during a tour of the bridge in Troy, Trelawny. The former Troy Bridge, which connected sections of south Trelawny and north west Manchester, was destroyed during Tropical Storm Sandy in 2021. Since then, residents have found skilful ways to journey across the river in efforts to conduct businesses or attend schools in the area.

The tour was attended by Member of Parliament (MP) for Manchester North Western, Mikhael Phillips; Councillor for the Warsop Division, Colin Gager; Minister without Portfolio with Responsibility for Works, Robert Morgan; MP candidate for Trelawny Southern, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert and other councillors.

While speaking to residents and journalists on Friday, Holness stressed that this investment is an indication “of a new Jamaica”.

He pointed out that the old Troy Bridge was built in 1869 and had served the parishes well during its time. The new Troy Bridge will boast a two lane road with sidewalks, and a retaining wall, Holness added.

“This new bridge will be a symbol of the new Jamaica where the government is investing in renewing, rebuilding, revitalizing, repairing and reinstating our aged infrastructure. I ask the country to understand these are not issues that are created by my political party or by the political party of [Mikael Phillips] the Member of Parliament standing beside me here. It is the natural course of things that if you have an economy that does not generate revenues, over time you cannot invest in your infrastructure and as the infrastructure age, it will collapse,” Holness said.

Meanwhile, Holness lamented that the country’s lengthy procurement process had lent a hand in the delayed start of the project. He explained that due to the nature of damage and cost to repair, significant effort was required to ensure there was transparency and economic viability.

“This would be considered capital works and whenever the government undertakes capital works, there is a certain set of procedures that we must follow.”

“In other words, we have to get the technical feasibility that a bridge can actually be built here. Then we have to look at the economic viability. Does it make sense to build the bridge here? Is there traffic? What's the population around it? Then you have to figure out, if you build the bridge, what will be the environmental impact of this bridge relative to the river, the flora and fauna around, and other issues that we may not even be considering, so we have to do environmental impact assessment,” Holness explained.

While speaking to The Gleaner during Friday’s tour, communications and customer services manager at the National Works Agency (NWA), Stephen Shaw provided an overview of the project.

“We're in the process of constructing a triple cell box culvert. The box culvert is going to be on a pile foundation, meaning it is going to be anchored on the piles that are being driven several meters below ground. We're doing that to ensure that in the event of the river coming down pretty heavily, we do not get a situation where the box culvert becomes compromised [or] dislodged in any way, shape or form, which we know can happen depending on the intensity of the rainfall and the current that flows within the channel,” Shaw said.

“Once that process is completed, we will then move to fabricating the steel and pouring the concrete to make the box culvert which is going to be three cells. In other words, water will be flowing through three different cells of this particular river, the Hector's River, in this space.”

Shaw further stressed the importance of delivering this project to the people of Trelawny and Manchester.

“We have a lot of farmers… in St Elizabeth, Manchester [and] Trelawny who depend on this particular stretch of road to get their produce to market, [or] to go to get critical services in the different places and so we want to ensure that the persons are able to go about their business in a reasonably safe and secure way,” he said.

At the same time, Phillips, who has been advocating for the bridge’s reconstruction, told The Gleaner that he was happy to see that the project has commenced.

“The timeframe that the prime minister announced for it to be completed has exceeded my expectations seeing the weather that we have been having and the amount of work to be done. A foot bridge will be put in place in short order so that will add to the safety of those crossing,” said Phillips.

rochelle.clayton@gleanerjm.com