Two months after the opening of the Enighed Pond Marine Facility, plans for a roundabout designed to alleviate congestion in traffic going to and from the barges are still in the works.
The roundabout will make it easier for large trucks to maneuver the Cruz Bay intersection at the Texaco gas station, helping to keep traffic flowing.
The traffic caused by Enighed Pond has not block the fire station and the Julius E. Sprauve School as some residents feared.
The V.I. Port Authority has, for the most part, kept the line of cars waiting to board the barges within the Enighed facility.
No Definitive Timeline
There is no definitive timeline for the completion of the roundabout, according to Wystan Benjamin, design and construction project manager for the V.I. Public Works Department.
“The design is being completed, and it’s projected to be ready somewhere around the end of September,” said Benjamin.
Following the completion of the design, there will be a three-month period during which Public Works will advertise for bids for the project, and evaluate those bids.
The construction timeline is being created with the design, according to Benjamin.
“We’re not sure how long the construction is going to take,” he said. “It may be a little over a year.”
Benjamin estimated that construction will start next January, but could not provide a time frame for the completion of the project.
“I’m not a genius,” he said. “Right now, it looks like construction will begin at the beginning of 2007.”
Public Works has not yet decided if it will close the intersection at any point during construction, according to Benjamin.
“All of that part of the design,” he said. “We’re going to work out the sequence of construction and how it’s going to happen with traffic control. We are working on that right now.”
Based on BenjaminÂ’s projections, the roundabout could be finished in early 2008.
