By LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporter

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

A $98m road paving programme will start next month to repair more than 50 miles of roads in New Providence in the first phase.

Clay Sweeting, Minister of Works and Family Island Affairs, said Bahamix will be the main contractor for the $98,210,000 programme, which aims to improve the porosity of more than 55 miles of community and arterial roads in New Providence and the Family Islands.

The New Providence portion of the programme will cost $91,207,000.68 and work is scheduled to happen within two and a half years. Sidewalk construction costs $3m and drainage works $4m.

Some $2m has also been budgeted to address flooding issues in the Dowdeswell and Bay Street areas.

“The ministry recognises that asphalt surfaces degrade over time due to weather, heavy traffic, ageing leading to cracks, potholes and safety risks,” Mr Sweeting said yesterday during an Office of the Prime Minister press briefing. “To address this, it proposes an asphalt milling and paving programme to replace old asphalt with new durable material.”

 “Eventually, if you don’t fix the road, then you have to not just mill it but rebuild it. So even though this might seem a hefty price tag, if we do it now, it will save the government in the long run because we wouldn’t have to rebuild the roads from scratch.

 Mr Sweeting said the ministry will focus particularly on Tonique Williams-Darling Highway, Joe Farrington Road, sections of Blue Hill Road, sections of East Bay Street and West Bay Street, DowdeswelDowdeswell l Street, Montrose Avenue, Mount Royal Avenue, Cowpen Road, Windsor Field Road, Eastern Road, Soldier Road, East Street and Kemp Road in the first quarter of 2024.

 The project will include Cat Island, Long Island, Eleuthera, ongoing works in Exuma, and Abaco in the Family Islands.

 Senior civil engineer Francis Clarke said the project will be different from the New Providence Road Improvement Project (NPRIP), which started on November 2, 2009, took three years to complete and saw its initial $60m budget double. The project angered residents.

 Unlike that programme, the upcoming project is not concerned with road reconstruction.

 “The NRIP was total reconstruction of a road that included infrastructure, underground utilities and sidewalks,” Mr Clarke said. “What we are doing in this programme is resurfacing and repaving, taking off the old asphalt and milling it.”

 Mr Francis said disruption for residents will not be as intrusive as it was during the NRIP.

 “There will be private contractors, along with the Ministry of Works in-house paving arm, that will put traffic management in place to minimise any type of disruption,” he said.

* This story has been changed to reflect that the 55 miles of roads will just be the first phase.