Orange Hill, St James: Man Disappointed with Limited Progress on Hazardous Cut-Rock Issue

The man who has been complaining for the past 26 years about the “precarious cut-rock” along Orange Hill, St James, is disappointed at the work that has been undertaken so far to deal with the perilous situation.

Rawle Smith, told a Nation team that he was shocked to see that workmen from the Ministry of Transport & Works (MTW) had only chipped away some of the rock from the middle section and were now installing a side-walk which in effect would put the road back to its original state of narrowness.

He is calling for the installation of the side walk to be halted and for the MTW to assess the situation as a matter of urgency.

The 68-year-old man summoned a Nation team to the area recently where he charged that what was done so far was a “waste of time”.

“They should have started cutting the cut-rock from the very beginning and go straight up so that the road would have clearance and you would be able to see the entire road but they have not touched that rock,” he said pointing to a section of the protruding stone.

“They cut away from the rock in the middle on a 45 degree angle when it should be vertical. Now when you put in the side-walk here, you are back to the same width of the original road. So it is a dilemma,” he lamented.

Smith had been complaining for several years about the narrowness of the major roadway, which is utilised by large trucks and buses pointing out that it created a danger for vehicles and pedestrians and had resulted in several accidents and near misses.

He had argued that the cut-rock created a blind corner; that two vehicles going in opposite directions, especially large vehicles, could not drive comfortably at the same time and that pedestrians were at the mercy of these vehicles as well. He had called for the cut-rock to be cut in order for the road to be widened.

Smith charged that the work was long overdue since it was all part of a 1998 rehabilitation project for the areas which was never completed.

As a result of his many complaints in this newspaper and on radio call-in programmes the MTW started to cut away the “cut-rock” last year.

Smith said recently: “It is a waste of time. We are back to square one. The same old precarious situation would still exist. After all these years of complaining, nothing has been merited from all of these efforts.”

It was last May that the MTW announced that the widening of the road at Orange Hill, St James would be undertaken and that the work was estimated to last three working days.

When contacted recently communications specialist, Shamkoe Pile said she would look into the matter.