Northern Coastal Highway Improvement - Bogue Montego Bay Jamaica 2009

Click link for news release: http://www.jis.gov.jm/news/114-transport-works/26590-mike-henry-opens-new-north-coast-highway-segment.

The project road is a section of the Northern Coastal Highway between Negril and Port Antonio, Jamaica, and specifically the section linking Green Island in Hanover and Montego Bay in St. James.

The project consisted of the construction of approximately 5 kilometres of four lane roadway on existing alignment between Reading and Fairfield Intersection, 1.3 kilometres of two-lane roadway along the Fairfield Road and 0.2 kilometres along the Catherine Hall Road.  Included in the project also were remedial works to the approaches and wearing surfaces of six bridges in the parish of Hanover.

The project corridor is characterized by many important commercial activities and two main residential areas whose large volumes of traffic are fed to the corridor by secondary roads which were also reconstructed and paved under the project. In addition to the local traffic, the project road forms the main gateway to Montego Bay from the western parishes of Hanover, Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth and plays a crucial role in the tourism product. Particular attention had to be paid to the traffic flow especially as it affected buses transporting tourists from the western part of the island to locations such as the Sangster International Airport and the Cruise Ship Terminal.  Restrictions on allowable construction times were also imposed by the requirements of the contract.

As a result, despite the numerous unforeseen problems encountered during construction, especially with uncharted underground utilities, the matter of traffic management was undoubtedly the  greatest challenge.

This problem was eventually alleviated to a great extent by approval to improve and subsequently utilize an NWC Service road through the Bogue Sewage Ponds which allowed eastbound traffic into Montego Bay to be diverted off the main corridor resulting in only one lane of traffic westbound through most of the construction site. This greatly facilitated the progress of the works.

A number of variation orders increasing the scope of the original contract were issued by the Client which subsequently resulted  in approved extensions of time of approximately 7 months to the original 12 month contract period.  These were adequately dealt with and the project was satisfactorily and successfully completed on October 31, 2010.