Lindeners will be crossing the Demerara River on a new, toll-free four-lane bridge within weeks, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali announced during an address to the Guyanese diaspora in Queens Village, New York, on Thursday evening.

The president listed the project among major infrastructure works in the government’s second phase of development.

“The reality is that in a couple of weeks, we will open the new four-lane Wismar Bridge,” the president said.

The US$35 million bridge replaces a crossing built by the Demerara Bauxite Company in 1966-1967 with a single-lane railway track, originally to move bauxite from the West Bank mines to the processsing plant on the East Bank. Over the decades, the ageing structure became a bottleneck.

The new 220-metre precast bridge is being built by China Railway Construction (Caribbean) Co Ltd.

It mirrors the design of the Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge and will have four vehicular lanes and two pedestrian walkways, with clear passage for hopper barges beneath.

Roundabouts on both sides will link it to the Linden-Mabura Road and the wider highway network, and the connecting roads are being expanded to four lanes.

The contract was signed in January 2024, and works started in April that year. The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration has also made the bridge toll-free, a policy decision aimed at cutting travel costs and improving regional connectivity.

The bridge forms part of the road corridor to Brazil. President Ali noted that more than 120 kilometres of the Linden-to-Brazil road have already been completed, a second phase has been awarded, and all the bridges along the route are finished. The Kurupukari Bridge across the Essequibo River is next in line.

“These are not dreams…These are active projects that we must deliver,” the president said.