http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2012/08/10/nacional/artic01.html

Calidad en cortes y reparaciones de las calles

Integration pivotal to “fill the gaps”

By Roberto Torres, Camila Acosta and Randy García

A Government-funded program is under way to improve the situation of our streets, but the problem still looms large mainly as a result of poor organization and lack of discipline.

Potholes thrive, unperturbed, in plenty of secondary streets.

Potholes, cracks, gaps, manholes poorly covered or laid below street level; freshly asphalted streets and avenues that “split open” again in a matter of days because of broken pipes in the sewage system...

A recurring situation conducive not only to public malaise but also traffic accidents, “if we keep in mind how much your car’s steering gear suffers as a result”, in the words of lieutenant colonel Mario Ríos Labrada, National Transit Division head.

Given the excessive number of institutions involved, it goes without saying that any solution calls for the same process of integration now in the making at all levels of our socioeconomic life.

Belkys Serrano Tejerizo, deputy president of the IPF (Town Planning Institute), said in this connection that most entities act vertically and without the degree of coordination and commitment the task requires.

Havana’s is perhaps the trickiest case, not only because there are far more streets than anywhere else in Cuba but also because it’s the only city with underground power, gas, telephone, water supply and sewage systems.

The Road Investment Office and the Provincial Road Administration Center –investors from various state bodies– are in charge of all repair works at street level, but what they do amounts to very little if those who work below fail to do their job or make a botch of it, according to statements made to Granma by Carolina Rodríguez Santos (Havana People’s Power) and María Caridad Álvarez Quintero (Ministry of Transport), respective managers of the abovementioned departments.

Some entities in charge of the underground public service utilities close the streets for repairs and take a long time to put them back in service or do a poor job on them.

Both specialists agree that not all entities responsible for the said underground lines work as well, even if they undertake to leave the streets as they were –that is, fully paved– before the jackhammers start doing their thing, pursuant to Law 109 of the Road Safety Code.

EVERYONE MAKING “THEIR OWN WAY”

Rodríguez Santos leads Havana’s Road Investment Office, a.k.a. the Technical Networks Division, out of which every repair, pothole-filling, paving and surfacing work is planned for over 4,000 streets, including the so-called byroads in our neighborhoods, less travelled and hence more affected.

A major problem facing this office is precisely what has come to be known as the “street jigsaw puzzle”, which brings into play as one the Ministries of Information Technology and Communications, the Basic Industry, and Transport together with the National Institute of Water Resources and the People’s Power. Too many chips on the table, as this daily found out while searching for an answer to the question of when we will finally “fill the gaps” in matters of quality control.

Coordination in terms of execution and completion of the works by a number of entities stands as the main problem. “Even if they deal with the underground networks quickly and efficiently, what they do at street level is another story: they take too long to resurface or fix them or else make a botch of it”. Another drawback pinpointed by Rodríguez Santos is that sometimes when they pour the asphalt they leave the manholes far below street level, which makes the surface highly uneven. This is a shortcoming the underground workers are yet to eliminate.

What’s worse is that everything ends up in no-man’s land as everyone keeps passing the buck around. Some say the underground crews are responsible, but these in turn blame it on those who do the finishing at street level. Let’s see what each entity has to say about it:

Francisco Montadas, Havana’s underground power grid director, holds it’s not a problem of coordination –or lack thereof– with the Technical Networks Division in charge of this task, but one of execution by the relevant entities.

Noel León Fernández, gas mains system director, admits that his office still has 94 potholes to check off its backlog while new permissions to close public streets have been applied for. As to the manholes, he said that their policy to level up all those located at asphalted streets is still in force. Enterprise director Mayra Elena Tassé ascribes the delays to the lack of resources and the problems with material supplies, already allocated but yet to be made available.

Here’s a conflicting view, though: Hugo González Rojas, head of the Special Group for Underground Networks of the Cuban Telephone Enterprise (ETECSA), speaks of poor coordination. However, ETECSA has always been particularly reluctant to bring manholes up to street level, using as an excuse Decree-Law 177 of December 1992, which establishes that whoever raises the surface of a street must place any manhole at the same level. Accordingly, “it’s not our job to do so”.

Alejandro Vilanova, Aguas de La Habana’s water source exploitation division director, has the same opinion: where a manhole lies is not his problem. “If (Technical Networks) raise a street level, let them raise the manholes too! If we lumber our eight maintenance and drainage crews with that additional task we’ll be seriously short-handed here”.

With nearly 2,000 cuts of secondary streets still on their pending tray, it’s safe to say there’s not a quick solution in the offing.

On a different note, when asked whether Technical Networks has any procedure in place to certify the quality of the work done underground, director Carolina Rodríguez Santos replied that such a responsibility belongs with the municipal investors who coordinate efforts with more than 20 other entities to repair roads and bridges, cover potholes, and asphalt streets, “except that they have neither the material supplies nor the means of transport or communications gear they need”.

“Some private workers have their share of responsibility too, albeit to a lesser extent, since they also break streets open without the requisite authorization,” she remarks. “Needless to say, at the end they can’t leave it all as it was when they started, not without the right equipment and materials or anyone who can do it, for that matter”. Responsibility for this kind of social indiscipline falls on the Government’s Inspection and Prevention Division, but much remains to be done in this regard.

WHERE WILL THE BUCK STOP?

What’s certain is that some loose ends still hinder the progress of the works to improve Havana’s road system while hundreds of secondary streets are patiently awaiting, unaware of who’s in charge of leveling the manholes and filling the potholes.

From what has been said we can conclude that our enterprises care about repairing their own networks but not the streets, whose condition is usually pushed into the background.

We heard proposals to solve this problem from the mouth of our own interviewees, who refused point blank to take on any responsibility as if it were a hot potato. Nevertheless, they all agreed that the situation is sufficiently serious to appoint a special entity capable of organizing and providing these services, or else we will get sucked under by a sea of potholes.