Tour of Troy Bridge Construction Site
Remarks
By
The Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP, DLP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Tour of Troy Bridge Construction Site
On
November 8, 2024
____________________________________
I believe it was in 2021 that the former Troy Bridge that was here where we are now standing collapsed just after the passage of a tropical storm and the ensuing debate in Parliament was such that I had to make a commitment to both the Speaker of the House at the time, Member of Parliament Marissa Dalrymple Philbert and Member of Parliament Mr Phillips from the adjoining constituency that I would visit the area, talk to the residents, give them assurance that their bridge would be replaced but this bridge is a microcosm of the general problems facing Jamaica’s ageing infrastructure.
The bridge was built in 1869, so the former Troy Bridge is about 155 years old but consider that the bridge was built that long ago and that it has stood the test of time of more than a century. But the truth is, it is not that the bridge has only reached its useful life, that the useful life of that bridge would have been about a hundred years, it has lasted much longer but the consideration is that weather events have become far more intense and far more frequent and far more destructive in their nature that they are not just destroying infrastructure that has reached their useful life, but even infrastructure that we have recently built.
So this bridge, what was the bridge is a demonstration of a problem that is facing all of Jamaica and that problem is ageing infrastructure, which were not supported by renewed investments for maintenance and then compounded by the impacts of climate change. But there is another story to be told about this bridge, and that is the length of time it takes for government to mobilize not just the financial resources but the technical resources and the compliance in order to be able to mobilize the contractor who is here to actually get the work done.
There are several steps for a project to be done and we are not always able to circumvent those steps using emergency procedures. Indeed, the residents, many of whom are gathered around, would say that the destruction of the bridge is an emergency but the rules that exist would say otherwise that would determine a particular pathway as to how these kinds of works are procured. Because of the nature of the damage which is the total destruction of the bridge, the cost to repair it is in excess of 230 million dollars to repair.
So the level of expenditure is significant but the nature of the expenditure as well, this would be considered capital works. And whenever the government undertakes capital works, there is a certain set of procedures that we must follow and that is we have to do a comprehensive study of the area to determine whether or not we can actually replace the bridge. 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? You don’t want to build a bridge to nowhere so you have to go through and do all of those studies. Then you have to figure out if you build a 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 assessments.
Once that is done, then it goes through what is called the public investment assessment process. The design and development phase is a part of it, but you have to consider that there may be 20 other communities that are in need of major road repairs and bridges, and we have to look at all the other demands versus the demand here to make an informed decision about opportunity costs that would be lost if we expend here versus spending otherwise.
In other words, we want to make sure that we are spending the public resources in an optimal way; all of that takes time. Then we have to go through the procurement process and that answers the question as to who will build this bridge. Is it the friend of a minister? Is it the friend of the persons who are in charge of the NWA? Or is it transparent? Was it put out for public tender? And would the best contractors be able to bid on it? Was it priced properly? And once all of that is done, and that goes through certain standard procedures which take the minimum I’ve seen is six months, at least. Sometimes contracting through the procurement process can take a year.
And then after that, we go into the actual mobilization of the contractor and that itself takes time. The contractor has to find a bond to ensure the works, that if there are any issues that happen they can be covered and there are other issues as well. Just to mobilize to the site, it’s quite a distance from where the contractor is based and to get the equipment here and all of that, that takes time. It could take you sometimes two to three months to mobilize from the base of the contractor to where the site is so all of those things would have elongated the period of response.
The residents here have been very patient. I’m sure both the members of parliament would agree that the residents have been very patient and understanding. I’ve seen a few videos being circulated where persons have shown the great peril that they go through in trying to cross the river and indeed the long time that it has taken to use the alternate route. So today, I’m here to say thank you to the residents who have been very patient and understanding and to commit in a very serious way that number one, the government is committed to ensuring that Jamaica has world-class infrastructure. Whether it is your bridges, your roads, your drains and culverts, Jamaica must have world-class infrastructure and we’re committing to that and we’re saying to the residents of the district here that even if your community is a rural community, you too deserve to have world-class infrastructure.
The second commitment is we commit as a government to build the infrastructure in such a way that it requires the least maintenance in order for it to fulfil and exceed its engineering life. So I got a briefing a while ago about the level of civil engineering that went into this bridge. The bridge that was here before built during colonial times certainly not built with the technology that we have now, it lasted for 155 years. This bridge should last even longer even with the growing threats of climate change.
The bridge is designed using a three-box culvert support structure so in effect the water will be going through the culverts with a paved invert, essentially and using that design adds great reinforcement to the carrying surface of the bridge, which means that the bridge can carry significant weight though we are not saying that you should use overweighted vehicles on the bridge, but the bridge is designed to carry significant weight. The bridge is supported by piles, as you can see behind me here, that they will be driving those piles even deeper in the ground, and there will be more piles to support the bridge. The entrance to the culverts, the inverts, those are properly paved to ensure that they are not undermined and they are supported. The bridge will have sidewalks to ensure that pedestrian traffic can be accommodated and there will be some retaining wall and gabion basket work along the sides of the bridge.
It is engineered in such a way that the public can be guaranteed that the resources that are spent will be long-lasting. But no matter what you build and how well you build it, maintenance must be done and so our other commitment to the public is that we are now structuring our financial affairs in such a way that we can have routine maintenance done in a preventative way to ensure that you have not just the useful life of the bridge, but you are able to use the bridge and all the other infrastructure with greater convenience.
In other words, the maintenance response shouldn’t be reactive, a pothole happens and then we patch it. The maintenance response should be preventative, crack happens and we seal; that is where we are trying to head to but that means that we will have to have a budget that aligns with the projects that we have that are building new roadways and new bridges so that if we build a road or we build a bridge and we say this bridge is going to last for 17 years, 20 years as a useful life, that bridge will have budgeted the maintenance that is required so we are not catching up each time which is what we have had to do.
Driving down here listening to the radio, the overwhelming number of calls that came in were about road conditions and I really sympathize, hear and understand the challenges that Jamaicans are having with the road conditions. Driving on the roads myself, I see it. Some of it obviously, and I’m sure our members of parliament here and the executive members of the NWA will agree that some of the challenges are as a result of poor workmanship and poor material. We don’t argue those points and greater effort must be exerted to ensure that we get quality for money whether it is quality in the labour and quality in the construction, quality in the materials used but my own estimate of the significance of that relative to the larger problem is that it would not account for the greater problems that we have.
The greater problem with our roads would be more than 90 per cent of our roads have already exceeded their useful life. Meaning that if you live in a community, let’s say, Mona, Harborview, Duahaney Park, Cooreville; all of those communities were built in the ’70s or earlier, 50s, 60s, 70s. There’s scarcely a road whose engineered use for life exceeds 20 years. In fact, the average would be 15 years on a highway that’s well-built. And even a well-built highway which has to withstand weather, changes in temperature, unpredicted wear and tear, meaning heavy-load vehicles are travelling on it more than expected, there will be certain failures on the road, whether it is a fault in a concrete support or the driving surface itself cracks or polishes or whatever and that compromises the road. And if you don’t intervene at that early stage, it results in bigger problems.
So the challenge that Jamaica faces, and I’m saying this over and over for the public to understand, is that the asphalt that is laid on the road that you are driving on, much of that was laid over 30 years ago. The quality of that asphalt by now would have reached its useful life and it will start to deteriorate in heavy rains, with heavy traffic use, and just normal issues that would happen to any infrastructure.
We are at a point in our country where we have aging infrastructure and aging infrastructure requires massive capital investments. And you can only get massive capital investments in the infrastructure to deal with the challenges that you face whether it is the highway that is filled with potholes or the road that passes your gate that is collapsing, you need to have an economy that is generating the revenues. Otherwise, you are going to have to borrow and the more you borrow, the less roads you can build. What we have committed to do is to ensure that our economy is performing at a level where your tax revenues can be used to finance the rebuilding of the ageing infrastructure rather than borrowing.
This bridge that we are putting up is an example of the government investing in replacing an ageing infrastructure and not one cent of it, the 230 million dollars is from borrowing. That is a major difference in Jamaica. If this happened 10 years ago, it is highly likely that 60 per cent of what would have been spent here would have come from some form of borrowing, so that’s a major change.
The people of Troy will get their bridge in another seven and they will be able to benefit from the convenience and we hope that this will spur even greater economic activity and give greater convenience to the public. But in the same way that Troy is a microcosm of the rest of Jamaica, as it relates to ageing infrastructure, this new bridge will be the 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 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 ages, it will collapse. And therefore the critical thing is to ensure that you have a government that can fix the economy to generate the revenues to invest in the ageing infrastructure and that is what this government is doing. It will take some time. It is not going to be a snap of the finger but the results are going to be seen as the people of Troy will now see their bridge replaced.
So again, thank you for your patience and understanding, and let’s keep the commitment to rebuild our infrastructure.