Second road marking, signage project worth $100K begins

At a groundbreaking for a $100,803 road project yesterday, Department of Public Works Secretary Martin C. Sablan said he’s hoping the U.S. Federal Highway Administration will “persuade” the U.S. Department of Labor to extend the program that allows the CNMI continued access to some 10,000 foreign workers beyond 2014 because many of them are important to DPW projects.

Sablan and Gov. Eloy S. Inos led yesterday’s groundbreaking for the second part of DPW’s islandwide road marking and signage project.

The project involves rehabilitating road markings and upgrading traffic signage along Dandan Road from its intersection with Flame Tree Road to the Isa Drive intersection in San Vicente. It also includes road shoulder reconditioning, and painting of sidewalk curbs and raised medians. This covers 1.75 miles of road.

In a brief ceremony near the San Vicente basketball court, Sablan said this project is just one of the many that DPW has been working on. This is in response to the governor’s challenge to the department because in the past, there were only “lots of planning but little construction.”

Both Sablan and the governor asked the public to be patient as DPW and its contractors work on these projects.

Sablan said most contractors’ personnel working on DPW projects are under the CW program, which is set to expire after Dec. 31, 2014, unless U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez grants an extension and allow the CNMI to have continued access to these foreign workers, who are mostly from the Philippines. They include engineers and skilled construction workers.

“I hope the U.S. Federal Highway will persuade the U.S. Labor to extend it,” Sablan said.

The governor, for his part, said this project “enhances safety for motorists and pedestrians,” and is one of the ongoing road projects on Saipan totaling some $7 million.

These include the $3.8-million Cross Island road improvement; close to $1-million Tun Segundo Road or Chalan Kanoa traffic light system and road expansion; the soon-to-be completed islandwide traffic signal system upgrade of about $1.5 million; the first phase of the islandwide road marking and signage upgrade, about $150,000; the second phase, which broke ground yesterday, $100,803; the third one in As Perdido Road, some $130,000; the fourth one along Beach Road, close to $400,000; and the fifth one on Tun Segundo Road, about $170,000.

Inos said the CNMI is now going to see “actual bricks and mortar” after years of seeing engineering designs.

In his meeting some two weeks ago with visiting Federal Highway Administration officials, the governor said there are a lot that “needs to be done,” but he said in jest that he only has three tools—shovel, hard hat, and scissors. But he said the visiting federal officials said they got the CNMI’s back.

Funding for many DPW projects comes from the U.S. Congress and is administered by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.