The Road Right of Way Control Unit (Codevial), attached to the Military and Police Commission (Comipol) of the Ministry of Public Works, reported that it has demolished or dismantled 114 constructions that violated the right of way on highways in different parts of the country. Overall, 381 works were notified, construction stopped, dismantled or demolished in this government.
The Codevial unit was created in March 2022 to monitor and supervise the trunk highways, to eliminate irregular constructions of houses, businesses, informal crossings or other works which could cause accidents on these important roads.
A press release from Codevial indicates that of the total, 22 constructions were in the North, 11 in the East, 80 on the Santo Domingo ring road and one in the Northeast.
The director of Comipol, General Rafael Vásquez Espínola said that the constructions of some 155 other works were stopped — 59 in the North, 29 in the South, 31 in the East, and 10 on the Santo Domingo ring road, 19 in the Northeast, and seven on the Ecological Avenue in Santo Domingo province.
In addition, he said that 37 illegal accesses to the roads were closed. These illegal accesses led to numerous traffic accidents. These were located 19 on the Duarte highway, one in the East, five in the South and three on the Santo Domingo ring road, and nine in the Northeast.
Codevial seeks to ensure compliance with Law 1474-38 (that dates back to 1938) and its amendments, which regulates construction on trunk highways, fixes their margins and establishes that the right of way is the space reserved for future extensions, construction of shoulders or any type of intervention that merits it.
The legislation in place establishes that there must be a margin of 20, 30 and 40 meters of free space on both sides of roads or highways, depending on whether they are trunk roads, secondary roads or country roads.
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Codevial
16 November 2022