It has absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic which is dealt with by one Department. It has everything to do with total inexperience of how to govern a developing country. As far as the Cabarete bypass and the overpass near Boca Chica are concerned , it is also a matter of saving lives. The widening of the road at Boca Chica was halted with the change of government but is now proceeding at a snail's pace. The two Boca Chica projects and the San Pedro by pass bridge repairs are the result of huge pressure from the Union of Bus Drivers and truck drivers but I am not sure which of the two threatened the Government,maybe both.
- Thread starter windeguy
- Start date
Cabarete Bypass Starting?
I'm really not criticizing Abinader. Politicians always promise much more than they can deliver. Danilo put a couple big signs on the Sabaneta-Moca road(Hwy 21) about 5 years ago touting it's reconstruction, and very little was ever done. It's in as bad a shape as ever. I never expected the Cabarete Bypass to be done anytime soon.
At least Cabarete is putting in new sidewalks. They started over 9 months ago and still aren't half done, but that is faster than the sidewalk in Sosua is being completed. Nothing happens quickly here.
Cutting a politician slack is not in my nature. Don't promise what you can't deliver. Simple.
Respectfully I would like to disagree. Every government everywhere in the world was caught off guard by the pandemic. The lockdowns, the curfews, the amount of resource and decision-making everywhere in local and central government which was diverted to dealing with Covid has been immense. And every capital project everywhere has become delayed as a result. In the case of DR not only did the new government inherit Covid they (at least Abinader) decided to do things differently and not play by the old corrupt rules. Wholesale changes of personnel at all levels in all departments of government. In a pandemic when everyone is then told to work from home. So of course this added to further delays.
But we have to accept that things change. The promises you made to treat yesterday's problems often have to be reviewed in the light of what is happening today. And there is quite which has happened in the last year. Apart from anything, Cabarete is primarily a tourist spot and part of the case for building the bypass must have involved its effect on tourism. There are way less tourists this year than last, many businesses in Cabarete have closed down as a result, all of this will affect the decision to go ahead.
I wonder if more draconian laws arising from Covid (requirements in tourist's countries) will further erode tourism?
Certainly businesses have closed - so maybe the need for a bipass won't be as needed as when Cabarete was booming.
I am starting to feel like the impacts of Covid have a permanent feel to them.
I refer to comments such as yours a politically expedient excuses. Can't do it? Don't say you can. I realize all politicians make promises they cant keep. They are politicians and much of what they say is not true. I realize everything in the DR is currently about Santo Domingo, Punta Cana and potentially entirely new development on the southern coast closer to Haiti. Why? That is where money is. Tourists go to Punta Cana because it is new and shiny while flights to POP airport dropped off well before CV19. Well before CV19, Years ago.
Cabarete has changed because of the drop off of tourists due to Punta Cana and is continuing to change. It was a tourist spot. It still is for watersports enthusiasts like Kite and regular Surfers. BUT: Now it is becoming an EXPAT spot. Casa Linda, Sosua Ocean Village, developments heading toward Islabon are all being built and now are selling. More homes in my development sold in the past year than sold over the previous ten years. Abinader has some interests in the north coast areas of Sosua/Cabarete, but obviously not enough to do the bypass.
So that added safety of a Bypass is for a lot of new EXPAT residents and perhaps a hope that more tourism would be stimulated in some way by making the downtown part of Cabarete more likeable. I had hoped the bypass would remove a settlement illegally built on government protected wetlands.
Safety, convenience and illegal settlement issues could be addressed by the bypass. Keep in mind almost of those new EXPAT residents can't vote, and even if they could, there numbers are growing but not enough to sway an election even if they could vote.
windeguy. I did not bother replying to the Covid excuse but I want to assure you that very little money on infrastructure or on basic maintenance is happening in the East or in the South or East of the Capital from what I can see. The country appears to be very close to standstill. I know Cabarete very well and it most definitely needs that bypass. Because this country does not have a rail system ,good roads are essential but what we have is falling into disrepair . There should be an excellent road from Puerto Plata all the way to Nagua connecting Sosua, Cabarete , Rio San Juan, Cabrera ,Nagua and then the Samana peninsula.
What the previous government did poorly was to prop up a deficit budget ,excluding capital works, with loans . That could not have continued. However this current government is paralyzed. I fully support , in this country, projects funded specifically and exclusively by a particular loan and not from money allocated for general capital works . This works well in other countries and worked well on the bridge over the River on the San Pedro bypass. There will be no change in the second year of this government, they will do next to nothing
What the previous government did poorly was to prop up a deficit budget ,excluding capital works, with loans . That could not have continued. However this current government is paralyzed. I fully support , in this country, projects funded specifically and exclusively by a particular loan and not from money allocated for general capital works . This works well in other countries and worked well on the bridge over the River on the San Pedro bypass. There will be no change in the second year of this government, they will do next to nothing
There is way too much emphasis and money being spent to develop tourism in the southwest. Any significant amount of tourists in that area is at least a decade away. It's taken PC 35 years to get where it is now. There's no decent sized airport in the southwest and how many tourists are going to want to drive there from SD? It's a 3 hour drive to Barahona and much more to Perdonales. Even if there were an airport, looked what happened with El Catey. Very few airlines going in there even today years after it was built and Las Terrenas and Samana, all existing tourist destinations, are not that long of a drive away.
Highway 5 is the main artery on the north coast and it, as well as some other roads should be done first IMO. There's many more important things that need to be done now than spending money on tourism in the southwest.
Highway 5 is the main artery on the north coast and it, as well as some other roads should be done first IMO. There's many more important things that need to be done now than spending money on tourism in the southwest.
At the risk of going OT, I agree entirely. Many airlines have yet to return to Punta Cana and charter flights into Puerto Plata are pretty-much non-existent these days. I can't see there will be many takers to go to Barahona and AI's can't exist without big volumes. You make a good point though, the government should stick to their knitting and carry on with the projects such as Cabarete bypass in existing tourist areas, rather than pump money into somewhere new.
To me reliable daily pumping of water and whatever investment Corraplata needs to fix their obvious crumbling system (not syphoned by corruption) should have a higher priority over the bi-pass.
Tourists won't come to hotels without showers.
Take a quick tour of one of Corraplata's water treatment facilites and you might start showering with 5 gallon water bottles.
It's amazing more people aren't becoming ill just by bathing.
And look at the state of any DR River. You could see cleaner water entering sewerage treatment plants up North.
A private well might be the safer bet.
Tourists won't come to hotels without showers.
Take a quick tour of one of Corraplata's water treatment facilites and you might start showering with 5 gallon water bottles.
It's amazing more people aren't becoming ill just by bathing.
And look at the state of any DR River. You could see cleaner water entering sewerage treatment plants up North.
A private well might be the safer bet.
I have always felt that building El Catey was a huge mistake. The DR might have been better served spending the money building a better north coastal highway system.
And the southwest has been on the radar screens of developers for more than a decade. But to clarify a bit, having flown into Maria Montez airport in the southwest, it is quite capable of landing larger planes carrying tourists. Probably needs upgrades in its ILS (Instrument Landing Systems), but the infrastructure is and has been in place for years. The tourism projects there are starting to take fruition.
While the north coast will still maintain its viability with future limited upgrades/additions, the serious money has, for some time now, gone elsewhere.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
I am sorry to hear this. It does seem to point out that the neglect is not just for Cabarete, but on empty promises almost everywhere.
Agreed the providing utilities such as water are a higher priority, but that pot of money should be different than road improvements.
What I mean is the problem is the DR government runs the water system called CORAAPPLATA and that has not worked well for the north coast. A very corrupt organization.
Nor has the government run EDENORTE been a good thing, although much improved over the past couple of years as some of the corruption has been expunged.
That said, where I grew up, the big city, known as The Big Apple, always got the money and the country bumpkin towns near the capitol of the state where I was got little. So I am used to being neglected by the higher powers in government. In this case it seems that promises all over the DR were made that won't be fulfilled.
Only time will tell If Abinader is changing the rules....Now as far as Promising things , he gets the top prize.........
How many has he promised compared to how many Danilo promised?
You should probably follow the president's Instagram so you can keep track of how many promises have been kept. You'd be surprised.
Sosua's sidewalks are what we used to call in Fortran programing .... a do loop