Sand River Bridge – St Francis definitely deserved better.
Garth Perry (again) draws our attention to the shoddy work on the Sand River Bridge.
“I was extremely pleased when the ‘Contractors’ engaged to construct the Sand River bridge finally opened the bridge to traffic after the years of construction activity and inconvenience to the travelling public of St Francis.
However, it appears we are not done with them yet. Driving over the bridge today, it was apparent that the (extremely thin) asphalt and the base course underneath has failed and potholes are now appearing. These are in areas which have already been patched. The mind boggles as to why this should now be happening after all the construction, ripping it up, doing it again, ripping it up and doing it again that they did. Why could EMPA as contractors and BVI as consulting engineers together with the Provincial road department not get their quality control up to scratch. The road is again going to have to be fixed at additional inconvenience to the travelling public of St Francis.”
“ST FRANCIS DEFINITELY DESERVED BETTER.”
That is bad I agree. The subcontractor was a local civil engineering contractor well known to me. He will have to repair and there may be a temporary inconvenience. He has a year maintenance period no doubt.
But I think St Francis Bay is lucky to have a new bridge of this quality considering what was done to the previous bridge. We should be grateful.
Would just love to have it secured and gated at night! With full time guards and cameras!
Why repair JUNK work? Do we have no long term vision?
Yeah I agree that it should be boomed at night with cameras.
Considering the time it’s taken and the mistakes that were made, though I’ve searched deeply and extensively for that elusive feeling of gratitude, leaving no stone unturned, it’s just nowhere to be found. The Japanese can repair a monster sinkhole in the middle of Tokyo in 3 days, with all services restored, but our home grown, university trained(allegedly) talent needed 3 years to build a diminutive structure by comparison of less than stellar quality. ……. Now when it comes to gating and monitoring the bridge and employing a SWAT team to gaurd it, I’m there 100%, and would gladly chip in my fair share.
I wonder why Garth Perry did not obtain comment from the contractor and BVI before jumping to conclusions. I’m sure the article would have been more relevant and interesting.