Filenews 17 September 2022 - byVassos Vassiliou
The Auditor General considers that the Paphos-Polis road will be dangerous while it will be anti-environmental and unprofitable, with the cost skyrocketing to €260 million in its final form.
It is noted that at this stage the road will be built with two lanes and in the future it will be transformed into a four-lane road, as it was planned from the beginning. The lanes were reduced because the road was deemed unprofitable.
Odysseas Michaelides, briefing the Parliamentary Audit Committee, said that unlike his predecessor who completely disagreed with the construction of the road, he himself was in favour of its construction but with the right standards. Our position, he said, is that the ministry has chosen to build a road with criteria that are not in line with the traffic volume it will have, not even after 20 years.
An expressway was needed, he continued, and what the ministry has done is a road that will not be safe because it was designed with intercity specifications, but will only have two lanes of traffic and will be two-way. He pointed out that it is inconceivable to want vehicles to move at 85 kilometres and to design it in such a way that vehicles can move at 150 kilometres.
The Auditor General's report states that the decision to build a two-lane road, with geometric highway characteristics, means that high-demand design parameters (design speed, minimum radii in the horizontality, minimum radii in the vertical curves, maximum longitudinal inclination, etc.) were used, corresponding to a highway and not to a Category A road, two lanes. According to the Auditor General, this design significantly increases the risks of traffic collisions. He expressed the opinion that the Minister should, exercising the powers granted to him by law and acting in a lawful manner as he should, reject the project and ask the Department of Public Works to review the whole issue, so that the project becomes economically viable, as a necessary condition for its promotion", added Odysseas Michaelides.
He emphasized that our Service was not against the promotion of the construction of a new modern road, which will connect Paphos with Polis Chrysochous. Our intervention had focused on the geometric patterns and the overall design of the project, since, in our opinion, the road as implemented is unnecessarily expensive and road unsafe.
According to an update received by the Audit Office from the Director General of the Ministry of Transport in January 2022, the study of alternative solutions / techno-economic / environmental for the Paphos - City motorway was carried out in 1997-1999 and two alternative routes were examined. The final route was then agreed, which is a combination of the two initial ones, followed by a new environmental study, which was completed in 2003.
The report states that despite the fact that the project was considered not to meet the sustainability criteria, due to the relatively low traffic, as a consequence of the isolation and limited development of the area, the decision to build it was purely political and aims to upgrade the quality of life of the inhabitants and the prospect of economic and tourist development of the area.
The fatalities were also taken into account
As mentioned in the report, the promotion of the project took into account the level of road safety, given that on the existing Paphos - Polis Chrysochous road there have been 15 fatal accidents with 18 deaths, during the period 2003-2019, as well as a large number of serious accidents with more than 50 seriously injured for the same period of time. Based on recent statistical data, from the traffic recording systems available to the Department of Public Works for the road in question, the average daily traffic is estimated at 4% annual increase, so in 20 years it is expected that the traffic will be around 16,000 for the Mesogi - Tsada Section and 14,000 vehicles / day for the Tsada - Stroumpi Section.
