Jamaica’s pothole plague (Pt II)

The government will have a task to convince the people that Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme is not another unsustainable road-patching exercise.

SPARK was first mentioned during the fiscal year 2023-2024, with an aim to spend $45 billion over three years. While the start of the SPARK programme is timely, our road users must appreciate what the programme can and cannot do.

Last week, the prime minister declared that the state of the roads constituted a national emergency. The truth is that the $20 billion allocated, for the first year of SPARK, can only buy some urgent road repairs, under tight management and oversight. The National Works Agency (NWA) will have their hands filled to prove that the works will be sustainable and that the public will receive value for money.

Economics of road works

Generally, maintenance of roads is cheaper in the long run than major rehabilitation or reconstruction. As an indication of costs:

· Major road rebuilding with sidewalks, water and drainage works costs about $100 million to $150 million per kilometre

· Major rehabilitation, that is, patching and mill and pave works at industry rates, costs about $10 million to $25 million per kilometre

· Routine maintenance and repairs cost about $5 to $10 million per kilometre for seal and patch work

It is clearly more affordable to prioritise timely maintenance of properly constructed roads than to allow the roads to deteriorate and require major rebuilding and rehabilitation. We all know roads that have been poorly built: prime examples in the Corporate Area include long sections of Spanish Town Road, Red Hills Road, Waltham Park, Grants Pen Road and Dyke Road. No amount of patching on roads like these will ever make economic sense. These failed roads should be systematically identified by technocrats and rebuilt rather than wasting further resources. Prioritisation and specification of the remediation road work requires professional judgement, and to ensure value for money.

The safety and well-being of the public is paramount; this should be left to engineering professionals and technocrats. Understandably, politicians will have insights as to why certain main roads should be maintained for socio-economic reasons. But technocrats and engineering specialists have professional insights that balance both economic and technical factors, especially when it comes to the second tier of roads, those that form the connectivity of our road network.

The cost to rehabilitate our road network, given the current road conditions, is much more than SPARK. Based on national databases of the National Land Agency and the NWA, Jamaica’s road network is over 18000 kilometres. It is my estimation from a sampling of road conditions using AI, that about:

· 80 per cent of our roads are in fair condition and need minor repairs. This will cost about $50 billion

· 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the roads need major repairs. This will cost over $30 billion to repair

· Two per cent to four per cent of the roads have failed and need to be rebuilt. This will cost over $40 billion

Clearly, Jamaica cannot afford to restore the entire road network over the next two to five years. It will take a scintillating $120 billion to $160 billion or about four to five SPARK programmes to do so, and it is therefore better to apply the limited funds we have available for this critical exercise with technical oversight rather than spend on a “patching” programme.

A new approach and value for money

As a small island developing state with lots of roads, it’s time to redirect the approach to infrastructure repair and rehabilitation toward a national 10-year maintenance plan, rather than the current reactive approach to storms or convenience of political timing. Such a road network maintenance plan should focus on key socio-economic hubs.

Priority should be given to networks of arterial and secondary roads that are crucial to several key economic sectors. For example, the residential, education and tourist sectors associated with the north coast highway network represent 21 per cent to 24 per cent of GDP and should be prioritised. Similarly, the St Catherine, Kingston and St Andrew network of major main roads that serve the education, creative, shipping and logistics sectors that represent 15 per cent to 20 per cent of GDP deserves prioritisation. The farming communities from St Catherine to Westmoreland that strategically support sugar cane, orange, goat and poultry farming and the communities from St Ann to Portland that support banana and coconut represent almost nine per cent of GDP (JIS, 2023) deserve attention.

Over the years, recurring repairs, poor oversight, substandard materials, and reactive rather than proactive planning have raised public concerns about value for money. The current situation emphasises the need for increased transparency, oversight, and long-term strategies to ensure a sustainable and reliable road network in Jamaica. In the last 10 years, over $167 billion has been spent on road infrastructure projects under the oversight of the NWA (and to a lesser extent municipal councils). These funds flowed from the Ministry of Finance allocations or Special Allocation projects, such as Major Infrastructure Development Programme (MIDP). Some projects, such as the major highways, like the north coast road between Ocho Rios and Montego Bay and the toll roads have delivered results. However, the overall value for money for the repairs to the arterial, primary and secondary roads remains questionable in the public’s mind for several reasons.

These include:

1.Poor quality material and workmanship leading to recurring repairs on the same stretch of roads. Believe it or not, engineering guidelines and standards exist to guide road construction material and methods, for example, the Development and Investment Manual (OPM, 2007). Despite this, we have all seen workers throwing sub-standard crushed marl limestone into potholes and hurriedly compacting and paving without supervision, knowing too well a pothole will result in the next major rainfall.

2. Transparency and oversight Issues: Concerns about professional oversight and corruption runs high and have cast doubt on whether funds are being used effectively. It is best practice that all road work should be supervised and monitored by independent engineers, but the NWA seems to prefer to do its own supervision and oversight, creating doubt about the agency’s credibility when it comes to quality.

3. Prioritising emergencies rather than long-term planning. For example, Hurricane Beryl. which affected over 500 roads, saw the allocation of $3 billion through the Relief Emergency Assistance and Community Help (REACH) programme. However, this is almost half of the recurrent budget of the NWA and suggests that reactions to emergencies will get a considerable allocation rather than routine maintenance that is already under budgeted. There would be less demand for emergency response and less interruptions if roads were maintained routinely and with technical guidance.

Recommendations for the way forward

It won’t be an easy road, and many of us can’t imagine it, but Jamaica can be almost pothole-free. To get there, however, requires that those responsible for Jamaica’s roads fundamentally shift their approach to funding and implementation to ensure sustainability, efficiency, and accountability. Here’s how we do it:

· Long-term planning will be key. For example, let the technocrats at the NWA design a 10-year road maintenance and improvement plan that is forward-thinking, addressing climate vulnerability and prioritising roads.

· Re-establish a Public Works Department (PWD)-style programme to ensure maintenance work is done by well-trained professional crews, providing high-quality and consistent results from the parish level. The PWD of old was a government agency responsible for the construction, maintenance, and management of roads and bridges. The PWD played a central role in shaping Jamaica’s infrastructure landscape, maintaining and repairing roads and bridges, and creating training, skills development and job opportunities for local labourers, engineers, and tradesmen in areas such as construction, carpentry, and civil engineering. Such a programme world not only ensure that roads get maintained, but also that skills and trades necessary are honed among local workers with a vested interest in the outcome of their work.

· Professional supervision and oversight of contractors by professional engineers will also be key, along with extended maintenance periods for construction contracts to improve accountability and durability.

This structured approach to road maintenance will address Jamaica’s current road issues while setting a solid foundation for the future.

The pothole crisis in Jamaica reflects inefficiencies in funding, planning, contract administration, and maintenance. For too long, road maintenance has been underfunded and lacked adequate oversight. At the same time people generally feel that the value for money from the NWA and parish councils has been underwhelming, with recurring repairs consuming resources that could have been invested in long-term solutions. Solutions centred on more technical guidance, routine maintenance from a new centrally organised PWD and a public facing portal that engages communities and uses AI are key to the way forward. This approach has the potential to deliver smoother roads and better value for taxpayers, paving the way for a smoother future.

READ: Jamaica’s pothole plague (pt I): Causes and underfunding of maintenance

-Dr Christopher Burgess is a registered civil engineer with over 25 years of experience in public and private infrastructure projects across the region. He is the managing director of engineering firm CEAC Solutions Co. Ltd., a former board member of the Professional Engineers Registration Board , and currently a council member of the Jamaica Institution of Engineers (JIE).