The Medina administration is pushing ahead with the construction of the San Juan- Santiago highway. Leading experts, including former Minister of Environment Frank Moya Pons and economist Eduardo Garcia Michel have come forward to suggest that repairing roads that already exist would serve the same purpose of connecting the regions at a significantly much lower cost to taxpayers and to the environment. Geographer Jose Ramon Martinez speculates that the main reason for the new road is to open up the mountain areas to mining. In an article this week in La Lupa investigative journalism magazine Martinez co-authors a report with economist Bernardo Vega on better alternatives to the government proposed route.
Public Works Minister Gonzalo Castillo said that the highway linking San Juan and Santiago would be up for tender in July. Castillo says that if all goes well, ground movement can begin by October.
During a television interview over the weekend, the minister said that his technicians are preparing a final version of the project for submission to President Medina. He mentioned that the design does not include any tunnels, which he felt would make the route unattractive to tourists.
La Lupa mentions others that have opposed the proposed route, including former bishop of Santiago, Monsignor Juan Arturo Flores Santana; Rafael Camilo when he was national director of planning, and then deputy Minister of Public Works Rafael Leonel Carrasco.
La Lupa recalls that even today President Danilo Medina expressed his concern when in the past he commented on the highway: “That is a matter that touches on the ecology; the highway will have to pass through the mountains of the Cordillera Central, and that is problematic.”
www.diariolibre.com/opinion/2013/05/07/i382398_carretera.html
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http://www.lalupa.com.do/2013/05/polemica-sobre-la-carretera-%E2%80%A8por-la-cordillera-central/#more