Highway extension would be ‘insanity’, group claims

Brake lights blink and blur in the inky pre-dawn light as a long convoy of vehicles splutters slowly towards George Town.

At 6am, the traffic is already lined up as far east as Cox Lumber in Bodden Town.

Striking new drone footage, shot for environmental action group Amplify Cayman, shows the scale of Cayman’s traffic problem, with the quagmire of snarled vehicles stretching for miles across several hours in the morning and evening.

Interspersed with serene shots of the Central Mangrove Wetlands, the video is an impassioned campaign ad against the planned project to extend the East-West Arterial Highway by 10 miles to Frank Sound.

While advocates have argued that the road will help ease traffic, Amplify Cayman claims that it will not, suggesting it will only serve to open up ecologically important land for new development, bringing more housing and more vehicles.

Emily DeCou, one of the leaders of the group, said the video aimed to help educate the public about the actual costs and benefits of the road.

DeCou, who narrates the short video of aerial imagery of traffic, opens with the statement: “Thousands of commuters from the eastern districts endure this daily insanity to get to work on time.

“You are told East-West Arterial extension will solve the problem but it will not. In fact, it will make it worse as the gridlock will just get longer and longer and the bottlenecks won’t be changing.”

Amplify Cayman argues that the road will just become a new corridor for development, aiding ‘corporate’ interests along the route.

An earlier Compass report revealed that Frank Schilling and the Dart group are among the land owners on the planned arterial route.

‘New approach needed’

In a press release accompanying the video, Amplify argues, “For decades, building more roads has not solved traffic, so perhaps what we really need is to discuss fixing traffic issues.

“Long term, this road will not even prove to be a solution to traffic. Time and time again, we see that more bypass roads lead to more development, and more development equals more traffic (and carbon emissions).”

National Roads Authority data, previously published by the Compass, suggests there is some truth to this.

The NRA projections suggest that if the full suite of highway infrastructure improvements are introduced, including the East-West Arterial Extension and work around George Town, commuting times won’t get quicker.

In fact, the data shows they will still increase, just by much smaller margins.

Without the roadworks, the NRA suggests journey times will only get worse.

Threat to wetlands

Amplify Cayman goes on to state that the road project, as proposed, would make Cayman less climate resilient and more prone to flood threats and storm surge after hurricanes.

“From a climate perspective, destroying mangroves increases greenhouse gas emissions and depletes our already limited healthy coastal ecosystems, which are critical to our climate resilience,” it states.

“We cannot afford to keep slicing up the Central Mangrove Wetlands – healthy wetlands equal healthy humans, a thriving tourism industry, and a resilient community.”

The road project has garnered a mixed community response. It has broad political support having been proposed by the previous government and now followed up by the PACT administration. It has also attracted vocal support from politicians and former politicians in the eastern districts.

Speaking at a public meeting last week, former East End legislator Arden McLean compared environmental campaigners to “religious fanatics”. He said people in George Town who had already built up their land and gained economically from doing so, had no right to prevent the eastern districts from doing the same.

Bodden Town legislator Dwayne Seymour also supported the road, saying it would help residents in the east get to George Town quicker.

Other audience members were less enthusiastic, citing concerns about over development and the impact on the mangroves.