It was just the 5:55 in the morning It’s a Monday like any other. We are right at the entrance to the Los Alcarrizos municipality, where Gustavo, dressed in a suit and perfumed, moves impatiently from one side to the other in the line of passengers who, like him, are trying to board a public transport bus to get to work in the center of the National District before 8:00 a.m.
“I’m still waiting for them to expand these cars, because we don’t fit in here anymore”
But many times at that time they are barely past kilometer 9. By then, Gustavo’s suit has lost even its edge and the perfume mixes with other fragrances and the smell of sweat from some of his fellow travelers.
It is only 6:00 in the morning and the elevated road at the entrance to the Los Alcarrizos municipality is congested
After watching several buses from routes 27 A, B and C parade for thirty minutes, packed with people, Gustavo, who sees the hands of the clock turning against him, finally manages to get a space at the door of a rusty and discolored bus whose passengers are packed like “sardines in a can.”
Inside the bus, where the temperature rises as time goes by, passengers comment among themselves about the urgent need to complete Line 2C of the Santo Domingo Metro.
Passengers in line
«We finally managed to get out of the traffic jam inside Los Alcarrizos! Now we just need the driver to break his arms before kilometer 14 so that we don’t get caught in the other traffic jam. This is the same every day, you get up at 4 in the morning and you’re still late, the cable car and the OMSA are useless if the big mess is on the Duarte Highway, and these people set dates and dates, and there’s no point in finishing the damn thing. Metro“, exclaims helplessly Ramona López, who travels every day from the Pueblo Nuevo sector to Abraham Lincoln Avenue.
The driver, a tall man with calloused hands and a furrowed brow, performs risky manoeuvres and overtakes other drivers who face the first traffic jam on the motorway, including those parked at the entrance to Los Alcarrizos, including official vehicles waiting for public administration employees.
Construction of the Metro
To mitigate the traffic chaos that has been occurring since six in the morning at that location, traffic officers opened an express lane on the opposite side of the highway in a west-east direction from kilometer 14 to kilometer 9.
Then the bottleneck
As everyone is in a race against time, drivers traveling to the National District from Cibao, Los Alcarrizos, Pantoja, Pedro Brand, Palmarejo and Villa Linda, crowd together in three lanes of the west-east section of the highway and try to enter «the brave way» to the alternate lane enabled by the agents.
“Brave” drivers enter the alternate lane
It is right there where a bottleneck forms, in a space of less than a kilometer, which consumes drivers. about 45 minutes.
In the despair When trying to access the road, vehicles collide with each other, motorcyclists break the rearview mirrors of their cars and small rivalries arise between drivers.
A wall in New Jersey blocks the express lane
And those who do not manage to enter must face the chaotic traffic that forms from kilometer 11 to kilometer 9.
For some drivers like Abraham Lara, the disorder could be reduced if they adapted the roads adjacent to the marginal that also includes the project of Line 2C of the Santo Domingo Metro that covers a stretch of 7.3 kilometers and consists of five stations.
Debris from the construction of the marginal
“They are not making any effort to speed up the work on that project.“Because look, it’s seven thirty, and I don’t see any work happening. On Sundays they literally do nothing, which is when they should be working, because there is no traffic congestion. There are still beams to be installed, and they say they are going to deliver it this year,” Lara complains.
On August 14, the then Minister of the Presidency, Joel Santos, said that the work would be inaugurated in December of this year.
However, prior to this announcement, the Government had specifically assured on October 4, 2023 that it would formally deliver the project in the second quarter of 2024.
Between promise and promise, the users of the areas surrounding Los Alcarrizos hope that the work will really be inaugurated this year, before stress ends their lives.
