The completion of the new causeway and highway network across Kingston Harbour was expected to spark major development in Portmore and the Hellshire Hills.The four-mile causeway and the newly built 33-mile highway linking Braeton to the Great Salt Pond were projected to provide faster access to southern St Catherine, support housing expansion in areas such as Independence City, and lay the groundwork for future development schemes, including an additional cross-harbour route from Palisadoes to Portmore.

Published Thursday, January 22, 1970

Cross-harbour causeway symbolically opened

A symbolic opening of the new causeway across Kingston Harbour linking Kingston to southern St Catherine took place yesterday when the Minister of Finance and Planning, the Hon Edward Seaga, drove over the development area.
Mr Seaga made the tour as host to Sir William Rendell, general manager of the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), who is visiting Jamaica to inspect the Portmore project which has been assisted financially by the CDC.
The causeway is constructed on land reclaimed by the Portmore development project and is part of a total reclamation scheme involving some 1,250 acres, with arrangements for the Government to share in the development extent of 125 acres.
Providing a four-mile link to St Catherine, the causeway will serve the Portmore area and the later Hellshire Hills development. More immediately, it will prove a boon to residents in Independence City, the new residential estate which is being built beside Caymanas Park race track.

Replacement

This new access route will take the place of the present 18-mile roundabout route along the Spanish Town Road and winding back through Gregory Park. It also carries with it the additional major advantage of bringing Hellshire Hills within a 20-minute drive of downtown Kingston.
Mr Moses Matalon, executive director of the Portmore project, and Mr G. I. Firmston-Williams, regional controller of the CDC, were in the touring party, which also travelled on the new highway linking the district of Braeton in St Catherine with the Great Salt Pond, which is at the edge of the Hellshire Hills.
This new 33-mile highway, now completed but not yet officially opened, was built by the Government’s Urban Development Corporation, of which Mr Matalon is the chairman.
A short spur road from this highway into the Hellshire Hills is expected to be constructed later this year, which will complete the programme of providing initial access roads to this vast area.

Terminal link

One of the most exciting features of the whole development, to which Mr Seaga called Sir William’s attention, is that the Portmore reclamation project will provide a terminal link for a future reclamation project which is now being studied to take another road across Kingston Harbour, this time from Palisadoes to the Portmore reclaimed area, joining up with the western end of the causeway.
Mr Seaga pointed out that the benefit involved here is the considerable shortening of the distance from Palisadoes, the airport, into Kingston proper by this western route across the harbour, and also into the Hellshire Hills, thereby making development projects in that area more attractive.
Another advantage of such a route across the harbour would be that traffic from St Thomas going across to St Catherine, or vice versa, could bypass the heavy cross-town traffic in Kingston by using the Palisadoes–Portmore road.
Mr Seaga praised the role of the Commonwealth Development Corporation in helping in the financing of Portmore and “many other important projects” in Jamaica to the extent of some $25 million.
Sir William was told by the minister that the Government of Jamaica appreciated the ready co-operation of the CDC in providing “long-term finance of such magnitude” and for “the obvious confidence displayed in the country’s future”.
Mr Seaga also congratulated the promoters of the Portmore development project for arranging the financing of the causeway, which he described as “one of the most imaginative engineering projects carried out in Jamaica”, at no cost to the Government.
Although it has not yet been officially opened, the causeway has unofficially been brought into use, many persons finding it a quick and easy way to get from Kingston to Spanish Town.
Some race-goers have already started to take advantage of this 10-minute drive to and from Caymanas Park.

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