Almost 80% of the roads in Ciego de Ávila are in poor condition

Almost 80% of the roads in Ciego de Avila They are in poor condition, reports the official press of that province.

Engineer Nodelsa Viñas Oramas, deputy director of the Pedraplén Sur Provincial Investment Unit and responsible for road maintenance investments in that territory, declared this Wednesday to Invader that in 2021 the Provincial Road Center classified 77% of the roads in that province as regular and in poor condition.

A percentage, he pointed out, that has remained almost the same from 2018 to date, in addition to the fact that in the last year the paving plan was not achieved.

“Not a ton of asphalt, and the patching did not even reach 40%,” Viñas Oramas pointed out in the aforementioned report, in which they also point out the lack of fuel, aggregate materials and machinery as causes of non-compliance in the road maintenance plan in that territory.

“No matter how much will we have, we depend on fuel, materials and machinery; Without these three elements we cannot conceive any alternative,” Milagros Reyes Acosta, director of Pedraplén Sur, also noted.

Reyes Acosta added that “we continue to be hit by the fuel and aggregate deficit, which also depends on the fuel.”

In Cuba, the poor condition of the roads is an issue that has been going on for years, in addition to being one of the causes that impacts the increase in traffic accidents.

In 2019, Construction Minister René Mesa Villafaña reported in the Round Table space that 76% of the more than 71,000 kilometers of roads that exist on the island are fair or in poor condition.

That percentage remains unchanged after two years of paralysis of the country due to the coronavirus pandemic and the worsening of the economic crisis on the island.

"What we are doing today does not stop the deterioration. We must work first to stop the deterioration," said the Cuban official at that time.

In the middle of this month, drivers reported that the Guáimaro-Colombia highway in Camagüey It is in a practically impassable state and “there is no vehicle that can withstand” crossing it in these conditions.

In a shared video In the Facebook group “BUS & TRUCK ACCIDENTS, for more experience and fewer victims!”, you can see the unfortunate state of the asphalt, which has completely disappeared in many areas of the road. In others, different layers of the paving are exposed and turn this road into a road of obstacles, peeling and full of potholes, which is a challenge for any driver and for the operation of the vehicles.

A few days before, in that same Facebook group, A user warned of the presence of a huge pothole on a bridge on the highway that goes to Guantánamo, so old that a plant has been born in it.

"From Santiago de Cuba to Guantánamo... For those who don't know about that, be very, very careful here. Before the Guantánamo highway," Yair Gómez warned in the aforementioned group.

Several members of the group commented on the danger of the pothole for vehicles that circulate through the area, especially at night.

"At night, anyone who doesn't know him is an easy target, and he'll fly down the bridge," said a father.

At the end of April it was known that more than 50% of the rural and mountain roads in the province of Sancti Spíritus show a high degree of deterioration.

According to statements to the newspaper Escambray According to an Agriculture official, of the 1,008 kilometers of roads that that state entity is in charge of, more than half are in poor condition, especially in the municipalities of Yaguajay, Trinidad and Taguasco.

On average, two people died every day in traffic accidents on the island during the first five months of 2022, according to recent data from the National Transit Directorate.

Compared to previous periods, the figures mark a considerable increase in accidents in Cuba, where on average 27 traffic accidents occur per day.

From January to May, 4,062 accidents were recorded in the country, events in which more than six thousand vehicles were involved.