What should be a five-minute drive to Wakefield Savannah in St Catherine from Linstead often takes 45 minutes to an hour because of the poor state of the road.
This reduces the number of trips taxi operator Shermaine Myrie is able to make daily. As if that’s not enough, the driver said that he has to “pull down” his vehicle each Sunday to repair damage that the vehicle sustains weekly.
“From me born till now and know miself a so dah road yah stay. Me run from Linstead every day and me will [only] make eight to 10 trip per day,” Myrie, who has plied the route for just over a year, told the Jamaica Observer. “From me born a so me know di road, and people weh born long before me a tell me di same thing.”
It costs commuters $120 from Linstead to the Mount Refuge Church of the First Born in the community; any further begets an additional charge.
One resident, Janice Lopez, told the Sunday Observer that taxis are scarce in the community as they tend to discontinue the route soon after they’ve started. But for Myrie, his continuation comes from the reasoning that “somebody has to run the route”.
“Me nuh leave ’cause me have no other route on the car. Maybe if me did have Bog Walk ‘pon it, me gone long time. But people ova yah weh haffi go out, and how else dem ago go out if we leave? Somebody haffi do it,” he said, pointing out that roughly eight taxis ply the route.
“You have some (taxis) weh jus’ come an’ lef it after a time because di road too bad fi keep up. It wicked man,” the taxi operator noted.
Lopez theorises that the road has been in a deplorable state for over 20 years and recounted the last time it was paved.
“A years now di road stay so. It’s been 30-odd years since me come here…and I remember when Miss [Enid] Bennett fix the road and from that time during one election period,” she stated.
She said that then Member of Parliament Enid Bennett, who ran the West Central St Catherine constituency between 1976 and 1993, commissioned the last repair, which was 24 years ago.
“Another time them throw some marl on it and you see when the rain fall it wash weh gone,” she continued.
The community acts as the border for two constituencies — North West St Catherine and and West Central St Catherine — represented by MPs Robert Pickersgill and Dr Christopher Tufton respectively.
Like Lopez, 64-year-old resident Raymond Harrison recalls the road being of better quality in the past.
“Me memba when it was better. First me see it like this, it just keep getting worse,” he stated, pointing to the unlevel roadway.
“Right now, from last week mi car muffler tear off and me just tie it up. Me cyaan bother fix it anymore, because as me fix it, it tear off again. You see because this car low, every minute me fix it, it tear off. Me cyaan bother with it,” he added.
The son of the community’s oldest resident, Harrison, related that his mother, 104-year-old Clarista Bennett complains about the road whenever she has to travel to the doctor.
“When she is going to the doctor she always cry, ‘Lawd wah mek unu a juggu, juggu me up so?’ because she a shake up. It’s so bad that although she cyaan see, she a feel it because the car a fling her all ’bout the place,” Harrison noted. “So you can just imagine a 104-year-old a drive ‘pon dis yah road yah as slow as me can drive and she still a feel it a shake her up,” he said.
In May, Wakefield residents blocked a section of the North-South Highway, protesting the condition of their road. Since then, Harrison said, the two MPs have vowed to work to have the road fixed.
Annette Thompson, another resident and volunteer teacher at the Mount Refuge Basic School in the community, said that she had to relocate in the days leading up to delivery of her son.
“It’s terrible, trust me, very terrible. When you driving in the taxi it’s up, down and all over…it’s terrible,” she stressed after a heavy sigh. “We’re hoping that this new Government will actually do something to the road.
“What saves us most of the time is there’s a little farming community where they cut the cane, so most of the time that’s where we get some little break from the bad road, but even the farm road now has gotten worse since the heavy rain. So we just have to hope and see,” she added.
Thompson has lived in the community for 31 years and said she does not recall a time the road was good.
“We have got several promises from the former MP, which was from the People’s National Party, which was the Government in power at that time…that the road would be fixed, but to date it’s still the same,” she said.
“The new Government now has made promises; they came through the community about two weeks ago and did an estimate of the road. They gave us word that they’re going to fix the roads so we’re still waiting yet again to see what will be the outcome,” she added.
On Friday, Dr Tufton told the Sunday Observer that “estimates have been done” to address the matter.
…yet unu voted for the same promise breakers time and time again.
Yup and they just voted in your do nothing party again Labourite Phantom. Are you saying that was a mistake?
This a di shyt mi talking bout when mi bun out di highway. Highway a build and roads in a communities look like di above. I wouldn’t even call dat road, mi nuh know what it is. Is 100% facts seh deze ppl situation is not an isolated incident, many communities suffering from proper roads. If a 30yrs dem a suffer like dis, look like dem will have to pool dem money and beg smaddy would di roller machine fi at least break up di rocks and marl dem road on dem own. Nuh wait another tutty yrs, teck tings into unno own hands as a community and fix unno road. Sometimes if you want things done you just haffi dweet yourself. Get up work pon unno road one weekend, unno won’t be the first set a ppl build unno own road, other ppl have done it and if unno join hearts and hands togedda unno can get a half decent road going.