– govt mulls use of barge to ferry heavy vehicles
Engineers working to fix structural problems to the Demerara Harbour Bridge will on Sunday morning l facilitate and supervised a retraction of the bridge to allow for marine traffic, but after this opening, marine traffic will be unable to pass for a few days since aggressive work will be untaken.
This is according to the Ministry of Public Works. On Saturday subject minister, Juan Edghill convened a meeting of a high level team that included, Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn; Jerry Mark Goveia of Industrial Fabrications Int; Marcel Gaskin from Marcel Gaskin & Associates Ltd; Ret’d Specialist in Bridges and Designs, Joseph Holder; Former Major of the Guyana Defence Force and Former Design Engineer at the Ministry of Public Works, Bhageshwar Murli; Demerara Harbour Bridge(DHB) General Manager, Rawlston Adams and other engineers from DHB.
The high-level team following an inspection agreed that a time-sensitive engineering solution would have to be finalised. The team also agreed that from 08:30hrs Sunday, September 6, 2020 engineers will facilitate and supervised a retraction of the bridge to allow for marine traffic. After this opening, marine traffic will be unable to pass for a few days since aggressive work will be untaken.
Additionally, motorist are asked to strictly observe the speed limit which is currently 20 mph, even as the ministry works on alternatives emergency arrangements for heavy vehicles by way of use of a barge.
According to the ministry the high-level Team will continue to conduct daily reviews and if needs be, twice daily, so as to ensure that the works to be done are completed in a timely manner taking into account the importance of the structure and its necessity to commuters. The release stated that Minister Edghill on Friday made public to the nation the crisis as it relates to the structural integrity that exist and identified this was known since 2016 and the matter was raised several time by the engineers to the then Ministers of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson and Jaipaul Sharma, as well as, the Minister of finance. Minister Edghill expressed disgust at what he termed the recklessness, mismanagement and maladministration that caused such neglect leading to this current situation.
Edghill promised to continue to engage the management of DHB and is also appealing to all stakeholders, marine vessels and motorists to be patient at this time.
On Friday the Demerara Harbour Bridge announced that the bridge was close to heavy-duty vehicles due to a major structural problem.
