Font Hill residents to get new bridge
RESIDENTS OF Font Hill in St Thomas and surrounding communities can now bid farewell to the old structure known to them as the Coley Bridge, which only allowed for single-lane traffic at any given time.
The bridge, which was recently demolished, is being replaced by a triple-cell box culvert as a part of preliminary works being done under the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project.
Happy to be among those impacting the long-awaited change in his community was Khaleo Smith, one of several locals employed to work on-site.
According to the 38-year-old labourer, “Mi glad mi get a little work on the project. Mi can show what me can do. At least me know that a few years from now mi grand pickney dem can look and say, ‘Grandpa work pon da bridge deh, enuh.’ And mi really glad fi a play my little part cause me born and grow here and still nuh know a who did build that first bridge, but somebody can hear bout me now and my little chargie dem seh we did put a hand pon this one. When it done mi can all scratch out a part with me name, mek dem come and see it and seh yea, a man did put him hand pon it in 2020 or 2021 when it done.”
Smith told The Gleaner that while he is a jack of all trades, his means of income have been stunted by the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
‘A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING’
“Mi do a little of everything but a steelwork mi a do right now pon this site. Mi even do a little farming and construction, but because of the COVID, things did a bit slow. So mi really appreciate getting this work,” he said.
Community members revealed that the Coley Bridge, which hovered over the channel of what they referred to as ‘Dry River’, had become defective and badly damaged by large rocks and water over the years.
Kenard Cox, project engineer at Alcar Construction and Haulage, the company contracted to oversee the phase of the project, explained that in addition to widening the thoroughfare, the new structure will also help to channel the heavy waters.
“So there was a very old bridge structure that was located here before but it had a lot of failures in it. So what we did was demolish that and are construction a triplecell box culvert that should accommodate all the water coming down from the hills passing through the Font Hill community.
“The roadway will be widened to facilitate one lane going in both direction, plus off-shoulder, so in total that will be about three to four lanes. This box culvert will take approximately four months to construct and so far we have gotten the excavation out of the way, so we are now moving to get the structure up and out off the ground,” he said, adding that the majority of the workforce is from the community.