by Jolene Toves

Guam - From bridges to our islands road ways Department of Public Works has several plans to make improvements around the island. DPW director Carl Dominguez says they are close to awarding notices to proceed with construction.

"With Black Construction to replace a bridge in Inarajan called the Acfallen Bridge that's closet to bear rock and then we also are close to awarding a notice to proceed to mighty construction to repair to bridges - one in Asan and one down in Piti," he said.

Dominguez says these bridges are not going to be replaced but instead repaired. Moving forward, DPW also has plans to repair two bridges in the Inarajan area, however he does not have a timeline for those improvements but does say they are a couple of months from now.

As for the two single-lane bridges in Malesso, he said, "Are still looking at a September time frame for going out to bid and construction to start maybe the first quarter of 2014 so that my report on bridges."

Dominguez says that as for the Hagatna Bridge Project, Phase 1 of the project is behind schedule by at least six months seeing several delays. He is hopeful that if all goes well Phase I of the project will be opened by May 31, after which the contractor will move to the second phase of the bridge. "When that happens we will still have two south bound lanes and two north bound lanes just as we do today," he said.

Dominguez says southern residents can look forward to improvements being made to the road along Jeff Pirate's Cove, addressing concerns of the roads safety. "As a matter of fact, next month in June I hope by mid-June but certainly not past June we are going to go out to bid and what we are going to do is resurface the road from Togcha Bridge past Jeff Pirate's Cove and just short of the Mobil service station in Ipan so that going to get an all new anti-skid road surface," he said.

According to Dominguez, that should prevent the slippery conditions when the roads are wet. DPW also has three ribbon cutting ceremonies scheduled in the next few weeks for the Talifac Spanish Bridge the Port Authority road and the route 4 project from Pago Bay to Yona Village and then from Ylig Bridge to Route 17, Cross-Island Road.