FOR more than a decade the residents of Welcome Road North, in Central Trinidad, have been pleading for better roads.And it was a welcoming sight yesterday when the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure (MOWI) and the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation (CTTRC) collaborated to do road repairs along the roadway.The residents said their calls for road repairs went unanswered for many years, forcing them to straddle recurring mechanic fees and exorbitant taxi fares.When the Express visited the Longdenville community yesterday, workers were doing spot patching work along the road. One resident, driving by, stopped to observe the work.Asked to go unnamed, she said the fix provided residents with much-needed relief.“I am very appreciative that they’re doing it. It was a very, very long time that this road was fixed,” she continued.She added that many taxi drivers refused to commute to and through Welcome Road North as their vehicles were damaged by the pothole-ridden roadway.“And if you do get them to come in, you have to pay double the fare for them to drop you inside, and they only come in if it is a full trip. So if it’s one person, they wouldn’t come in.“The last time I travelled here, I paid $12 for a drop—and that was over a year ago, so I am sure it raised,” she said.As a mother, she said she drove along the road at least twice a day to drop off and pick up her children from school.“With the state of this road, it does damage your car, your suspension, your tyres,” she said.In her last trip to the mechanic, she said she paid nearly $1,500 for repair work, with some work left outstanding.“This here today will be a relief to us drivers and car owners. I am very grateful,” she continued.Another resident of the community, Heather-Dawn Girod, noted that the roadway was an important route, as it was a thoroughfare to Cunupia. She stressed the necessity to upkeep the roadway. “This is how taxi drivers make their money, and also it impacts the health of our vehicles. Those things are very expensive and jobs are very hard to come by, so it is important that the infrastructure is good,” she said.A resident of the area for ten years, she recalled that work was last done on the roadway about eight years ago. She said that pipe work by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), compounded by the passage of heavy trucks, had caused crater-like holes on the roadway. With the wet season already declared, she said she had hoped that the relief would have come sooner.She added that the area was impacted by rising floodwaters, which washed away the material on the roadway.“The MP (Rishad Seecheran, Caroni East) is saying that they put in some kind of binding agent so it won’t move. So, it’s a wait-and-see approach; but I’m glad to see that he (Seecheran) is here,” she said.Present at the site yesterday were Member of Parliament for Caroni East Dr Rishad Seecheran and CTTRC chairman Ryan Rampersad. Seecheran said the works were being done under the National Road Rehabilitation Programme, which falls under the MOWI.“I have lobbied, as well as chairman Rampersad, for (Works) Minister Jearlean John to include Welcome Road in the rehabilitation programme that she is currently doing around the country. She has assisted us in that regard, and we are so very happy that we are able to do some rehabilitation works to allow the residents, as well as those who may use it for business, as well as other purposes, to traverse this road in a safe and timely manner,” he said yesterday.He noted that under the previous administration, the roadway was “neglected”, leading to its “woeful condition”.Adding that yesterday’s effort was focused on patching potholes, he said Welcome Road was on the list of roadways submitted to the MOWI to be completely rehabilitated.“It would take a significant sum to get that work done and it is something that we are hoping to get done in the next financial year. But today we are trying to bring as much relief as possible,” Seecheran continued.Rampersad told the Express yesterday that when he became the local government representative for the area in 2013, Welcome Road was one of the roads marked for repair.“Back then, our Honourable Prime Minister (Kamla Persad-Bissessar) had an accelerated rural development programme, and we were able to get Welcome Road North, as well as Welcome Road South, adopted under the Programme for Upgrading Roads Efficiency (PURE) for total development,” he said.Phase one of the programme, he added, was completed, but with a change of government in 2015, the work was left incomplete.Rampersad said that for over ten years, the road had fallen into “a major state of disrepair” as there was no “major development work”. He said that while the road fell under the management of the CTTRC, the corporation was strapped for funding.“With the change of government, we are now getting positive responses from various ministries, with aggressive lobbying from MP Seecheran also. We have the ears of the Minister of Works, the Honourable Jearlean John, and there’s a partnership taking place today,” he said/“So, we are happy to be working for the people of Welcome North, as well as we have some work going on in Welcome South, and all the other areas, and what we have promised is to bring as much relief as we can,” Rampersad added.