~ Road may be reopened to two-way traffic ~
PHILIPSBURG--While the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) announced that it understood from government that Union Road would be opened to two-way traffic, no decision about this course of action has yet been taken.
The SHTA said it had met with Head of New Works and Planning Kurt Ruan and Claudio Buitenhuis of Windward Roads to reiterate concerns raised during its meeting with traffic police regarding the disastrous impact on the business community and the damage created to destination St. Maarten, due to the huge influx of negative ratings on various social networks.
According to the SHTA, Ruan and Buitenhuis then went over various re-routing options, after which Ruan agreed to re-open Union Road to two-way traffic for a period, to see if it would improve the flow of traffic. "He hoped to have it re-opened by Wednesday morning, pending discussions with the traffic police, because an officer would have to be placed at the Union Road-Orange Grove junction to direct traffic," an SHTA release read.
However, Assistant to Minister of Public Works Maurice Lake said that no decision had been taken on re-opening Union Road to two-way traffic, but it was under consideration. He said currently efforts were being made to install control units on a consistent basis at traffic bottlenecks. If this proves unsuccessful in the next day or two, Union Road might be open for two-way traffic over the weekend.
In order to ease the burden on the community, Buitenhuis explained that they use the excavators only between 9:00pm and 7:00am, when there is the least traffic, and have also assigned some construction workers to assist in directing traffic. He also told this newspaper that the sewage lines will have been placed and the roads filled in, by the end of next week, which should stop people from slowing down to look at the work being carried out and that should improve the traffic flow.
SHTA asked to be included in the planning stages moving forward and requested an update on the schedule of the current and future road works. Ruan informed that the current construction was on schedule to be completed in eight weeks, on December 8, after which the Waterfront Road would be worked on. After the high Tourist Season, the remainder of Welfare Road will be addressed, followed by another large project (in planning) for Union Road.
"In short, the SHTA would like to appeal to the community in general for calm and patience during this extremely frustrating period. The organisation will work with the Tourism Office to counteract some of the negative reporting on the Internet social networks by explaining that this period of growing pains will come to an end and will provide the Dutch side of the island with much needed infrastructure upgrades that will benefit not only our tourism product, but also the quality of life for the public in general," the SHTA said.
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