Vineyards Toll Plaza to undergo J$53m expansion

This development is slated to commence this year and comes amidst growing concerns due to traffic backlog at the Vineyards toll booths especially during peak hours.

This expansion project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2025, and has been allocated a budget of approximately J$53 million. China Harbour Engineering and Construction (CHEC) is the contractor.

Managing director of the TJH, Ivan Anderson, says the upcoming upgrade is necessitated by motorists experiencing lengthy delays when accessing their services.

At present motorists spend more than three minutes on average at the Vineyards Toll Plaza, Anderson noted which is a cause for concern for him and his team.

Speaking to exclusively to Old Harbour News, the TJH boss said an additional lane will be added at the location bringing the total to nine lanes.

He said: "We constantly monitor the level of service we provide to our customers... We want the wait time to be reduced with three minutes being the maximum and adding a new lane will allow more vehicles to go through faster.”

Frequent users of the Vineyards Toll Plaza will welcome this announcement given the massive pile-up in traffic during morning and evening peak hours each week. While Anderson did not made mention of the rapid growth of Old Harbour it was more than likely a contributing factor in its decision-making in addition to the expansion of Highway 2000 East-West to Manchester.

One motorist told Old Harbour News that the traffic sometimes stretches to almost a mile away from the toll plaza.

“Them need some sort of improvement! I use this toll daily and suppose you see the traffic more while, way down there so and we not moving. Them really need to get more workers or more booth or something because these long wait in line mess up people schedule man,” argued Owen Wilson.

Additionally, Anderson reported that there is currently work being done to construct two new access ramps at the Old Harbour Road (A2) roadway westbound entry, parallel to the exit at HiPro Feeds Factory and the eastbound exit ramp will be constructed parallel to the existing eastbound entry ramp.  He said that motorists entering eastbound to Old Harbour would pay no toll fee either on entrance or on exit. Also, motorists entering westbound at Old Harbour would pay no toll fee on entry or exit at Free Town.

Regarding the impact on motorists, Anderson assured that the expansion will not pose any issues.

"The expansion project is designed to [only] improve the level of service and there will be no interruption. The extra lane at the toll booth will be added on the extreme north, closest to where the chicken farm is. All our lanes can work in either direction," he explained.

However, with 10,000 vehicles passing through the Vineyards Toll Plaza per day, the question is will adding an extra lane effectively address the issue. As preparations for the expansion are being planned, motorists are waiting to see if this infrastructural enhancement will deliver as promised or traffic backlog will remain an issue.