by Clynt Ridgell, KUAM News Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Subscribe to Clynt's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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Back from his trip from the nation's capitol, Department of Public Works director Larry Perez has unveiled the latest roadmap to meet the transportation needs associated with the military buildup on Guam. And the multimillion dollar plan map calls for some major maneuvering through Central Guam.

The billion-dollar defense access road originally proposed to link Guam's naval base in the south with its Air Force base in the north is on hold for now. Perez announced, "One of the reasons that we put that on the backburner is because the buildup, it has to happen in a short timeframe. If you go with that billion-dollar connector road you have to do the environmental impact statement and that takes about two years."

Perez says this road would simply take to long to build when the military needs roads it can use to transport construction supplies from the Port Authority to NCTAMS within the next few years. NCTAMS is currently the preferred but not necessarily the only potential site for basing the 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa, along with their dependents.

Perez says the proposed route for these construction materials will run from the Port Authority road onto Route 1 or Marine Corps Drive, then from Marine Corps Drive onto Route 8 or the road that passes through Mongmong-Toto-Maite alongside Tiyan past the tri-intersection in Barrigada to Route 16 or the road that passes by the Barrigada post office and down the overpass, where it connects back to Marine Corps Drive and then on to NCTAMS road.

"For now, let's work on the existing roads where we don't necessarily need to do any EIS but rather we can improve on the road re-enforce it widen it, do whatever we need to do on the existing roadways and improve it so it doesn't have any congestion it's strengthened for the loads," Perez said.

The director explained the upgrades to this road and the Hagatna Bridge will cost around $50 million, which is what they hope to get for Fiscal Year 2010. The total amount initially requested for Guam's transportation needs through the year 2013, however, was $4.5 billion, a figure produced with help from Parsons Brinckerhoff, the Parsons Transportation Group, the Federal Highway Administration, the University of Phoenix in Arizona, central federal lands and others. Perez says the next step as per the directive of Joint Guam Program Office director David Bice was to try and get federal funding.

So Perez and DPW have been knocking on federal doors, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of the Interior, to name a few. He summarized, "They basically said, 'You know, we don't have $4.5 billion lying around, so what we can do is for this immediate requirement to start it is we'll work towards getting you $50 million initially.'" Perez says the federal government is proposing a payment scheme that would work in phases. This means they'll have to prioritize needs for Guam's roads as the development and military buildup requires it.

Despite this, Perez says work sessions in Washington, DC were very productive. "Bottom line: at the end of the day it was not disputed the $4.5 billion is a requirement that was done by experts in the field," he said.

Perez adds that the Government of Guam has been able to meet the May 23 deadline to request federal funding for its hull roads for the 2010 fiscal year. (Again, this will only be $50 million instead of the $4.5 billion.) Perez is confident that the remaining money will be given incrementally over the years, adding that Bice has promised to go to bat for Guam, if needed.