The collapse of a bridge in Avocat has left 40 residents, representing seven families without severely limited access. The heavily wooded village of Avocat is serviced by a small single-lane paved road that crosses a bridge that appeared to have collapsed at its centre. The bridge is built from concrete plinths laid on a frame of steel girders with supports at either end. The bridge failed in its unsupported middle as the girder spans bent. The design aligns with no acknowledged form of bridge construction; the engineering taking cues from arch and beam bridge spanning systems with none of the stress support associated with such designs.
Most of the residents left the village after temporary access was achieved by a boat crossing the river, after they used vegetation and created a step-down to reach the boat.
Works Minister Rohan Sinanan said that the bridge was on private land, but the government doesn't build roads on private land without a release of ownership. Before a road is constructed, the road area and a setback must be transferred to the government. Who built the bridge in the first place? Who constructed the access roads?
The Town and Country Act of 2016 is not clear about the responsibility of the government for arterial roads on private land, nor does it specify construction requirements for roads or bridges built on privately-owned land, but the presence of a WASA connection suggests some level of official intervention.
Without regular engineering oversight of the problems facing the villagers, the problems with the bridge managed to deteriorate to the point that it collapsed, taking with it the village's water connection.
The Ministry of Works and Transport says 18 per cent of the roads in Trinidad are classified as agricultural access roads; the kind of narrow, sketchily constructed roadways that service tiny villages like Avocat.
Those roads fall under the authority of regional corporations and were targeted by a $5 million repair programme started in November 2021.
By June 2023, efforts to ramp up work on secondary roads, half of which the Works Ministry estimates are in only fair to poor condition, were being stymied by the government's procurement regulations.
The government was flush with cash, with more than $180 million available for works, but had only 80 registered contractors qualified to do projects. The procurement registration hit small contractors particularly hard, exactly the kind of nimble workforce normally deployed on small access roads.
The emphasis must now be on restoring access to Avocat village, earning the attention of Fyzabad MP Lackram Bodoe, Rural Development Minister Faris Al-Rawi and Mr Sinanan, but remedial work should also be accompanied by regularisation of the access road, so that ownership and responsibility for its repair and improvement can be clearly established.
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