Benefits Of Proper Roads Access
Dear Mr. Editor
Anguilla is a developing nation. There is a constant demand for good quality infrastructure, transportation and services. But since Anguilla is a small island, with quite a sizable population, this problem still has not been addressed in totality. Anguilla has paved roads on the main streets to hotels and businesses while many households and some Villas and Restaurant owners are driving on poorly constructed ones with many potholes in the dirt, big rocks and pools of water. This is very bad for one that pays for a yearly vehicle licence fee.
Having a poor road system makes it more difficult for children to go to school, and more expensive for household owners to travel back and forth to their homes. Bad roads adversely affect people in countless other ways – and thus it makes people poorer. Building and repairing roads make a powerful impact on people’s lives in the rural areas.
Additionally, road development brings social, cultural and economic changes in the lives of the people, in terms of providing connectivity between people and places – and thus helps in reducing poverty by direct market access to the rural producers. It is a fact that if roads in an area are well-developed and properly maintained, travel time is reduced – and access to local supermarkets, work places, educational institutions and medical and health services is increased.
Benefits from improved road connectivity are delineated pointswise in the following:
• Safe, paved roads that can be used in all-weather conditions mean that people who once suffered at home, or died intransit, can now reach modern medical care.
• More and more pregnant women prefer to visit the hospital for the delivery of babies.
• Lives will be saved, as the ambulances can reach the villages on proper roads.
• The improved road enables people, particularly women, to find jobs, commute to work and schools, and go to clinics and hospitals more quickly and safely.
• An improvement in the employment situation in terms of more job opportunities, avenues for self-employment and so on will be generated.
• Better road connectivity will increase sources of income, and increased income will help in reducing debts – and would increase the buying power of the people, thus would improve overall standards of living.
• Good road connectivity will give a boost to better livelihood options in terms of a hike in land prices, increase in business opportunities, change in people’s lifestyle, shifting of occupation from farming to business, increase in mobility, goods transport and travel facilities, good accessibility, reduction in poverty, illiteracy and ignorance.
Finally, it is concluded that the effectiveness and impact of the road building projects that connect poor, vulnerable and isolated communities to schools, services and markets are key to socioeconomic development. Also, road building and repairing roads make a powerful impact on people’s lives in the rural areas. It is imperative to understand that infrastructure such as better roads carry a profound role towards reducing poverty.
Anguillian Community Citizen
