Saw the article below on today's newsfeed. I was wondering what the architect recommends (seriously he just criticized - I want to know his actual thoughts on a solution)... True that you generally have to go through Santo Domingo to get any where else, but it's not easy to just lay out a new highway from punta cana to santiago and connect everything in between.
I think a good start is to get the highway that goes around Santo Domingo started (like the one that goes around San Pedro de Macoris). I know one of the reasons that Corredor Duarte started was because of the vast amount of people that pass through Santo Domingo that are going elsewhere - thus, causing all that unnecessary traffic in the city.
"The DR revolves around Santo Domingo
In an interview with Listin Diario, architect Marcos Barinas comments that 50 years after the assassination of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo everything in the Dominican Republic still revolves around Santo Domingo.
He criticized the way that all efforts by subsequent leaders have concentrated on improving and extending the initial network of roads built during the first US occupation from 1916-1924, first supported by the dictator with his major public works program.
Marcos Barinas says that this centralization means that a citizen of San Pedro who wants to visit La Vega, is obliged to pass through Santo Domingo. A citizen of Bani who wants to go to Santiago has to do the same thing.
"What the state is doing is reinforcing the centralization of the city of Santo Domingo. That is incredibly absurd. Here you have to pass by the capital city to go anywhere."
He called on the government to diversify the road flow through other areas, saying there was a need to align future public works to a national development plan.
"We don't have a deficit of infrastructure. There is no planning. What gets done is whatever is in the mind of whoever is in power," he commented.
He stated that Dominican cities needed to be better interconnected, without having to depend on the National District."
I think a good start is to get the highway that goes around Santo Domingo started (like the one that goes around San Pedro de Macoris). I know one of the reasons that Corredor Duarte started was because of the vast amount of people that pass through Santo Domingo that are going elsewhere - thus, causing all that unnecessary traffic in the city.
"The DR revolves around Santo Domingo
In an interview with Listin Diario, architect Marcos Barinas comments that 50 years after the assassination of dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo everything in the Dominican Republic still revolves around Santo Domingo.
He criticized the way that all efforts by subsequent leaders have concentrated on improving and extending the initial network of roads built during the first US occupation from 1916-1924, first supported by the dictator with his major public works program.
Marcos Barinas says that this centralization means that a citizen of San Pedro who wants to visit La Vega, is obliged to pass through Santo Domingo. A citizen of Bani who wants to go to Santiago has to do the same thing.
"What the state is doing is reinforcing the centralization of the city of Santo Domingo. That is incredibly absurd. Here you have to pass by the capital city to go anywhere."
He called on the government to diversify the road flow through other areas, saying there was a need to align future public works to a national development plan.
"We don't have a deficit of infrastructure. There is no planning. What gets done is whatever is in the mind of whoever is in power," he commented.
He stated that Dominican cities needed to be better interconnected, without having to depend on the National District."
