The Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) and the Haitian Government announced yesterday the delivery of rehabilitation work of the section Titanyen - Saint Marc of the Route Nationale #1, launched a campaign to improve road safety. RN1 links the Haitian capital with the north of the country and over a quarter of Haiti's population lives along the corridor, making of it one of the busiest routes of the country.

The rehabilitation of this road will reduce travel time by 50%, enabling people and commodities to flow more quickly. This is the Dominican company Estrella who carried out the rehabilitation works.

President Michel Martelly present at the ceremony declared "...I participate in this ceremony of rehabilitation of the section Titayen / Saint-Marc especially to congratulate and thank for a job well done, all those who in one way or another, have allowed to realize it. I appreciate indeed, that all actors, at the level of funding, development and implementation of the project, have assumed to the obligations of the specifications and I consider the work carried out as an example to follow, if the multilateral cooperation, really wants to be effective and focused on the satisfaction of needs of zones served."

For his part, Luis Alberto Moreno, IDB President declared "...It is with great pleasure that I am here with you this morning for the delivery of work for the rehabilitation of the RN1 and for launching the communication campaign for road safety. I am extremely proud that the IDB is a partner of government and of the Haitian people in these two important initiatives for the development of the country [...] funded through a donation of $137 millions of the IDB [including the collaboration of the Government of Canada through CIDA]."

The engineer Jacques Rousseau, Minister of Public Works, Transport, Energy and Communications provided some clarification on these impressive works "...this section of the Route Nationale #1 which goes from Titayen and reaches Saint Marc, totaling 71km. The width of the roadway is in average of 7 meters, there are shoulders of 1.5 meters on each side... [...] major drainage work was also done, about 27 km of ditches masonry and about 15,000 m3 of gabions have been installed in different rivers [...] sidewalks work have been carried out in the cities [...] because unlike the RN2, the RN1 through cities [...] so, about 9.000 m2 of sidewalk that have been made ​​[...] in addition to the slope stabilization [...]"

The IDB is the largest multilateral donor to Haiti. The transportation infrastructure represent one of the largest components of the Bank's portfolio for the country, which amounts to $1 billion.

HL/ HaitiLibre