I had some stressful moments there, where I actually did not know where I was. We went to Zeerover for dinner a few days ago, and suffered greatly on the way down to Savaneta through the bumpy, meandering, temporary lanes, scattered with cones, traffic barriers and rocks. No signage, no lights. It was hell.
Never again we said, let’s take the back-roads on the return.
(Dinner was lovely, I did not know the kitchen stays open until 9pm)
On the return through the Savaneta salt pans, Spanish Lagoon, TeleAruba, Barcadera, and Parkitenbos, I took a right just below Amuse Bistro, on Bucutiweg, then another right.
I was dark in Cas Paloma. No signage, no lights. My phone had no juice, so no GPS. I drove on and somehow found myself back on the Barcadra road. At a certain moment I was driving into a factory, Arugas? Ecotech? I don’t know. I had some stressful moments there, where I actually did not know where I was. I could see the airport, but how do you get there?! Luckily a highway came up, the new one to Mahuma, and I recognized that fancy uphill curve as the road back to civilization.
“Hi Bati,” says a note I just received, “I want to address the road construction in San Nicolas and through the island. They are busy doing their job but they are making traffic worse. They have not left one road completely open for those of us who work in Palm Beach area. It takes more than an hour to navigate the detours on every single road. They have left open gaps in the road without cones potentially damaging my car and other cars, without care.
And the new speed bumps they have constructed in San Nicolas, they are not marked with bright paint nor reflectors. Because we know they are there, we slow down but it is hard to tell at night exactly where they are in the road.
And for the tourists that don’t know, some say it nearly put their heads through the roofs of the car when they hit them at normal speed. The planning department is doing a HORRIBLE job. I am NOT happy. Thank you for listening.”
Just to remind you the project set out to design, build, finance and maintain the 36km Green Corridor highway. It was destined to expand the capacity of the existing main road from Reina Beatrix Airport to Savaneta, converting it from a single carriageway (1×2) to a dual carriageway (2×2) over a distance of approximately 8 km.
BUT WHY DO ALL KILOMETERS AT THE SAME TIME??????????????
The same mistake was made in Oranjestad when the whole town was gutted, for years, why can’t you reconstruct the highway in phases??
As a PPP, Public-Private-Project, the Colombian developer Odinsa Group is financing, designing, and constructing; Deutsche Bank provides the debt, and GOA is the public sector procurer. Construction was arranged in 2013 and was supposed to take 2 years and cost $77m. AAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH.
