Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan wel­comed the re­lief the high­way ex­pan­sion in Ch­agua­nas has brought to com­muters. Speak­ing with the me­dia on Tues­day dur­ing a site vis­it, Sinanan as­sured that ad­di­tion­al up­grades will fur­ther ease traf­fic con­ges­tion.

The next phase will ex­tend from Chase Vil­lage to Freeport, aim­ing to com­plete three lanes to San Fer­nan­do. Sinanan al­so an­nounced that all pedes­tri­an walkovers across Trinidad and To­ba­go will be up­grad­ed with new light­ing for safe­ty. The next set of traf­fic al­le­vi­a­tion mea­sures is sched­uled for this year.

PURE (Pro­gramme for the Up­grade of Road Ef­fi­cien­cy) Di­rec­tor Hay­den Phillip out­lined the five-phase plan, not­ing that the first phase at Soogrim Trace has al­ready im­proved traf­fic flow. The next ma­jor step in­volves con­struct­ing a round­about at Mulchan Sieuchan Road to redi­rect ve­hi­cles off the over­pass. The gov­ern­ment is in the process of ac­quir­ing the nec­es­sary land for this de­vel­op­ment.

Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works, high­light­ed the pos­i­tive im­pact on Ch­agua­nas East and Ch­agua­nas West. “Our fo­cus is on sus­tain­able so­lu­tions that will bring long-term traf­fic re­lief,” he said.

Sinanan con­firmed ad­di­tion­al mea­sures to re­duce traf­fic in Ch­agua­nas. Phillip ex­plained that the first phase in­volved widen­ing the road­way at Soogrim Trace and build­ing a round­about near the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and the Di­vali Na­gar site. An­oth­er round­about will be con­struct­ed at En­deav­our Road, al­low­ing north­bound mo­torists to en­ter the high­way with­out us­ing the over­pass.

“This project had a prop­er traf­fic study and was on the draw­ing board for a while. The de­signs are com­plet­ed, and land ac­qui­si­tion is in progress,” Phillip said.