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Ah,... the job. I had a feeling that there was some reason why I was getting paid to live here. It must be the job (a.k.a. “The Job”).
First and foremost, it is not all sun, rum, reggae, ackee and saltfish, and romantic dinners on the veranda watching the cruise ships depart.... there is the Job, too. The Job, however, relates directly to the rum, sun, and etceteras, for these are the reasons that tourists perform their yearly migration to the Caribbean. Jamaica’s fragile economy would wither if it had to survive on their two major exports, bauxite and bananas (I might address ganja in another missive), so Jamaicans rely on the infusion of US and Euro dollars which they are happy to separate from the tourists who bring them here. However, these imported dollars and their foreign carriers need a more efficient distribution system, which the USAID is going to provide.
Great numbers of tourists fly into Montego Bay then motor to Negril to the west or to Ocho Rios, Port Antonio, and Boston Bay to the east. The drive to these tourist Meccas are, as are drives everywhere on the island, oftentimes an adventure, as the roads, as we say in the transportation industry, are “pieces of crap”.
The condition and configuration of the existing highways on the island (in general), and along the north coast (specifically), we can blame on the British (mostly because blaming the Brits is almost as much fun as blaming Canada, or even deriding the French). The Brits are to blame because they built roadways here without taking into account that, decades after independence, the Jamaicans would liberalize certain import laws, thereby allowing automobile density on the island to double over the course of four to five years with no regard for the impacts this would have on the capacity of the existing streets. The result is a transportation infrastructure underdesigned, overutilized, and poorly maintained.
[Enter SMARMY CONSULTANT, stage right]
“Have I got a road to sell you! It will speed tourists to tourist spots, speed workers to industry, and speed crops to market. It will create jobs. It will be maintenance free, wide and safe, comes in a wide range of colors and, best of all, someone else will pay for it. You cannot lose!”
[Enter CYNICAL CONSULTANT, suspended by cable]
“Liar, liar. Pants on fire!”
Sure, Mr. Smarmy has some good points, but they are not completely truthful. Tourists will get to tourist spots quickly, but they will not get as close to the island and her people at 100 kph as they did while driving at 50 kph. Money will go to Hoteliers and their American and Cayman bank accounts, not the locals. The road will bring workers to industry,... if there was any industry. There will be construction jobs for a time, but they will be short term, and the equipment has to be deported once the project is complete, so the workers who have been trained to operate an excavator or motor patrol will have nothing to operate once we are through. A big chunk of project change is used to buy materials from the United States for incorporation into the works, so the local economy does not benefit as much as it would from a similar project in the States. The road will be maintenance free, but only because there is little roadway maintenance anywhere (the highway will need maintenance, but you do not get much for free).
With two 3.65 meter lanes and 2.40 meter shoulders, what we are really constructing is a high speed, four lane, “dual carriageway”, pass whenever, overtake on the shoulder, many people will die sort of highway.
It will be multi-colored, ranging from black to gray to white, with some yellow tossed in for striping and signage.
It will not be free. The Peoples of the United States (USAID) and Japan (OECF) are funding the construction itself (thanks, guys), but the Government of Jamaica is saddled with the costs of acquisition and relocation, which could equal the originally estimated construction cost of some US $30-40M. Also, the Jamaicans get to pay our almost embarrassingly large consulting fees. That is a lot of cake for a country deep in dept, where the average family earns around US $3k a year (the union wage for unskilled labor runs less than a buck and a half an hour).
With that said, there is nothing like the dust and diesel fumes, the loud equipment, and the smell of concrete to tell me that something is being built. An accountant works all day and sees numbers change in a ledger. The baker bakes the loaves, then sells the loaves, and starts again tomorrow exactly where he started today. I am exacting scars on the planet that you will be able to see from space.... and I get to drive over my work.
Sense a philosophical conundrum?
Well, in the words of the Goose, “it’s nothing a year in the Tropics won’t fix”.
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