West Front Road upgrade hailed a success
─ Fern Drive, Essequibo, Critchlow streets also rehabilitated
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Residents of West Ruimveldt have welcomed the upgrades to the West Front Road by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure.
West Front Road was among a list of streets, catered for in the 2019 budget, to be rehabilitated. Approximately $729Million was set aside to upgrade roads in Regions 4, 6 and 10.
West Front Road was repaired at a cost of $69,083,400 by contractor H. Nauth & Sons.
“It is perfect. I think this is a good way forward for the government; recognising a community like this and fixing the road for the people,” remarked taxi driver Joel McRae who frequently traverses the road.
According to Barry Grogan, better known as “Water Man” who sells water from his truck, “The road is smooth. It is a little wider and it has a lot of [speed] bumps now to slow down the rate of other road users that exceed the speed limit.”
For Mickey Niles, a vendor of four years within the community, the repaving of the road has resulted in a reduction of transportation costs for taxis. Mickey told DPI, “at least at nights when you go out and have to come back in, they [taxi drivers] won’t have to call a whole set of money […] now that the road is done, everybody wants to go up and down it.”
Other streets recently rehabilitated are Fern Drive, South Ruimveldt Park; Essequibo Street, Lamaha Springs and Critchlow Avenue, South Ruimveldt Gardens.
Below are the total contract sums for roadworks previously done in for 2019
| Regions | Roadworks |
| 4 | $309,523,000 |
| 6 | $263,520,000 |
| 10 | $714,510,000 |