With the current woes on the sea bridge between Trinidad and Tobago, coupled with a shaky air bridge which leaves Tobagonians and travellers alike marooned on a day to day basis, former Scotiabank managing director Richard Young says a bridge linking Toco to Tobago should be seriously considered and can be done without putting the country in debt.
During the run-up to the general elections on September 7, 2015, then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had suggested that a suspension bridge could be built from Toco to Tobago, but then Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley had countered that no amount of money in the western hemisphere and no engineering known to man could pay for or build such a bridge.
In recent times, however, Rowley has suggested that Government was now considering a port at Toco as another option to alleviating the issue. In fact, last week after Tobago House of Assemyl Minostiry leader Watson Duke staged his swim protest from Tobago to Trinidad, the PM noted that Duke’s journey had only bolstered Government’s argument for such a project.
But Young told the T&T Guardian that the real solution for the sea and air bridge woes was through a bridge, adding this feat can come from the East using Chinese technology, resources and funding.
Speaking from his office at the T&T International Financial Centre (TTIFC) at the International Waterfront Centre, Port-of- Spain, Young highlighted China’s multi-billion-dollar One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR).
The Belt and Road initiative was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, when he visited T&T and offered concessionary loans to not only this country but other Caribbean nations totalling approximately US$3 billion.
OBOR aims to link Asia with Europe, Africa and other countries around the world along ancient land-based and maritime trade routes through various trade and infrastructure projects.
Bridge not an impossibility
Describing himself as a private citizen, Young said, “Building a bridge to Tobago along 19 miles is not an impossibility, the cost may be prohibitive in the region of US$1.5 billion.
“But the Chinese have the technology, they have built bridges, highways, airports, new cities, artificial islands and train systems in China and other countries.”
He added: “I have travelled on the Donghai Bridge leaving Shanghai, one of the longest cross-sea bridges in the world with a total length of 20.2 miles (32.5 kilometres) of a six-lane highway leading to the offshore Yangshan Deep-Water Port.
“The port has an LNG regasification plant, over 700 gantries, is still expanding and there were more than 20 wind turbines generating electricity.”
He said if such a bridge was built here there would also be the opportunity to start getting involved in renewable energy.
Young said the bridge to Tobago could be modelled after the $730 million four-lane 67.2-km-long North-South toll highway in Jamaica, which links the capital Kingston in the South with the tourist city of Ocho Rios in the North. That bridge was built and funded by a Chinese company, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), and has reduced a two-hour drive by less than half. He said CHEC took all the financial risks and in return Jamaica gave it a 50-year concession to recover its costs, by awarding it land alongside the highway for the same period of time to develop for residential and commercial use through the establishment of a resort hotel. He said the T&T Government could enter into similar public-private partnerships (PPP) with Chinese companies and businesses for a win-win situation.
Young said such a project had the potential to create an improvement in productivity and provide a stimulant to the economy of Tobago.
He said given the extensive investments made by the Chinese government and businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean, it would be easy to convince them to invest in such a project if they were given an incentive.
However, Young said one of the conditions for the joint venture was that there should be some form of local content, and while T&T had very formidable construction companies they had to make sure there was efficiency, productivity and value for money.
Senior lecturer in transportation engineering in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at The University of the West Indies’ St Augustine campus, Dr Trevor Townsend, says the most feasible transport method to Tobago in the shortest time frame for implementation and lowest capital investment was currently the ferry.
Expert — Ferry still best option
He said the proposal to create a physical land bridge from Toco to Tobago would require major capital investment, incur recurring expenditure, operating costs and demand in service will have to be determined whether such a project was feasible in the medium to long term.
Townsend said T&T’s ferry problems were not an insurmountable challenge, noting other Caribbean islands operated ferries and this country had been operating a ferry service since the 1900s, noting the current woes were more of a planning and procurement issue.
However, he said questions had to be answered as to why the country was in a position of crisis scrambling to get a boat to operate.
When asked if large, amphibious military transport planes can be used in the air bridge, Townsend said the distance between Trinidad and Tobago was too short and the country was not going to get economies of operation out of the use of such aircraft.
Inter-island Trailers and Truckers’ Association Horace Amede said a bridge linking Toco to Tobago could be done, but the cost of maintenance and the toll to travel on it had to be considered.
Tobago Chamber of Commerce president Demi John Cruickshank meanwhile said during former prime minister Patrick Manning’s tenure a feasibility study was done on a bridge proposal. He said Tobago cannot afford another ferry fiasco to ever happen again and he would welcome all discussions for a solution to Tobago’s sea bridge woes.
Former transport minister John Humphrey meanwhile said a bridge won’t be worthwhile because of the country’s relatively small population.
Noting that the US now owed China more than US$1 trillion, he said he was involved in several mega-projects with investment from two Chinese banks but they had insisted on transparency when dealing with various T&T governments that came into power.
Humphrey said a port in Toco that would have increased production and development in the area was promised by the NAR government but never materialised.
He said a port was also being considered when Sadiq Baksh was works minister in the United National Congress under Basdeo Panday and was a feasible idea because when a road is built to Toco all the land adjacent to that road is usable and the road should be designed to accommodate a settlement.
But Humphrey said a land bridge spanning from Toco to Tobago was not feasible. He said while in Jamaica you may have a lot of traffic to support the cost of that highway built by the Chinese there, you will not get that volume of traffic in T&T to justify financing such an expensive project.
Humphrey said plans were presented to the People’s Partnership government and prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the beginning of her term.