For 30-year-old Gary Ragobeer and his colleagues of Double S Trucking, who traverse the West Demerara roads as much as 10 times per day to conduct their sand truck business, the opening of the $15.1 billion Schoonord-to-Crane four-lane Highway has been a godsend.
On Wednesday, Ragobeer could not stop smiling as he spoke about how much of an ease commuting has been over the past few days.
Ragobeer shared that the new road has already resulted in him being able to increase his productive capacity, allowing him to earn more.
“It’s 100 percent better than before. It used to be headache, bare headache man. I used to have to cut out working daytime and work strictly at nighttime, now it’s more business and more better traveling. More ease on the traffic is more production,” Ragobeer explained.
He described the previous time-consuming hassle of using the West Demerara public road as “hell”. Ragobeer is among the thousands of commuters who have already begun to feel the impact of the benefits of the new carriageway which was officially opened last week Thursday.
Imran Ali mostly uses his motorcycle to commute on the West Demerara, but now that the traffic has eased due to the Schoonord-to-Crane highway he’s hoping to now be able to use his motorcar more often
President Dr. Irfaan Ali has already dismissed the recent attempts to disparage the works on the highway as nothing but “empty noise”.
“There is absolutely no concern about the Schoonord road project. There are some drain covers and these are covers where the form still has to be removed, and this is still ongoing and there is a long defects and liability period so this is just empty noise,” the President noted on Wednesday as he responded to questions from the media corps about concerns raised about the highway.
In a recent social media video, concerns were raised about certain aspects of the roadway, including the drain covers, rebars and claims of potholes being patched. However, in a statement issued the government explained that the drain covers “has not reached the curing age” with all of the identified issues expected to be rectified once all works were completed.
The completion of this four-lane highway is another tranche of the milestones that the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government has achieved as part of efforts to transform the infrastructure network across Guyana.
On Wednesday afternoon, Nigel Jordan was also enjoying the ease of commute that the highway provided as he took his nine-year-old daughter home from school, traveling from Vreed-en-Hoop Primary to Parfait Harmonie in record time. Jordan also uses the West Demerara roadways regularly to take his wife to her job.
Sandtruck driver, Gary Ragobeer and his colleagues of Double S Trucking have already been able to increase productivity at their business due to the ease of commute on the new Schoonord-to-Crane Highway
“My wife works on the West Coast so it’s a lot of ease for me getting her to work and bringing her home. The traffic real ease up big time. Even on the [West Demerara] public road traffic flowing free. If you come from Georgetown and you living on the West side when you come through here its easy access. This is a real good thing,” Jordan noted.
His sentiments were shared by another female commuter who was enjoying her travels as she returned from work on the West Coast.
“The distance is shortened and the time is shortened. From Parfait to the West Coast now is like 15 minutes, which in you used to have to be on the road for like an hour. So, this is excellent, and the road, the surface is much better,” another female commuter noted.
Forty-eight-year-old Imran Ali, who has been living on the West Demerara for the past 25 years, is also enjoying the ease of traffic that he has been experiencing.
“Traffic, traffic, it used to be a lot of traffic man, but now it’s a free flow,” he noted.
