7 News Belize

Construction, Confusion, & Chaos in Downtown Belize City
posted (April 29, 2008)

For the last two weeks downtown Belize City has resembled mini-Baghdad. The three utility companies are hard at work preparing the downtown area to be paved. But it has been easier said than done and Albert and Regent Streets have been chaotic. And if you thought it was anywhere near to completion – you’re wrong. Here’s why.

Keith Swift Reporting,
Downtown Belize City is under construction: streets are closed, utility workers are digging trenches and laying pipes - and then there is the dust. And along with the construction – there is confusion.

Woman #1,
“Yo know me old so sometimes my foot goes in them and it twists side way so and….its rough.”

Man #1,
“Bwoy it affects me bad because you are not getting to downtown how you want it. You have to burn extra gas and gas is high and everything right now. It gets on your nervous.”

The City Council expects preparatory work to be completed within a month. That is the good news. The bad is that before it gets better – downtown Belize City will get worse. They say you can expect water and electricity and pretty soon there will be nowhere to walk.

Kenny Morgan, Public Relations Officer – Belize City Council
“The utility companies, particularly the water company will now be going back over the road to do the individual connections to residents and businesses. What that means is that we will be breaking up the sidewalks as they exist right now. So the pedestrian public will be having some of the problems that the motoring public has been experiencing for the past couple of weeks.”

Keith Swift,
So have timeline as to when this will all be over?

Kenny Morgan,
“What we are looking at is around the weekend of the 27th of May. That is when all the preliminary work should be done.”

Keith Swift,
There is no way to give people advance notice about street closures?

Kenny Morgan,
“The advance notice that we would be able to provide would be very short, it wouldn’t be more than 24, maybe 36 hours at the most. That is because, as I mentioned, when the utility companies reach at lets say one of the junctions, maybe Albert and Dean Streets and they are making the tie ins at that corner then they will inform us what areas they will need to have blocked off. We will deploy the traffic personnel to go out and assist that situation as we are informed of it.

Now we know that once the electric company comes in, their outages will only be on the weekend. For the water company, they will be notifying us before hand so that we can in turn notify the public. What we would like to ask at this time is that as the work intensifies and the water company gets into the actual breaking up of the sidewalk, we’d like to ask the pedestrian public, those persons who walk and down business between Albert and Regent Streets on a daily basis to have some tolerance. This is something where progress brings a little bit of problems.”

Problems and also jobs. Dozens of people have been hired to dig trenches. Included are two women – Tanise Smith and her friend Sharon.

Tanise Smith, Digging Trenches
“You get bruises on your hand, like this, and the other day when I was looking for jobs and thing I even sent out applications but this was the only job I could turn to because if I didn’t come out here I don’t know if I would have gotten a job.”

Keith Swift,
What is it like being out here in the broiling sun?

Tanise Smith,
“Hard, hard. We have to fight hard out here so your kids can eat and thing because it is only because of my kids I am out here doing this.”

Sharon, Digging Trenches
“It is nice working out here with the guys than working with the women because you get along with men more than woman. I was scraping fish at the market but there are a lot of haters when it comes to fish scraping. So I it is best I try this for a change. I like to make my own money because a lot of people are dressed up all day but they are broke in their pockets.”

Morgan says that immediately after the utility companies, the contractor hired to pave the streets will move and begin what the City Council estimates will not take more than a weekend.

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