City creates ordinance regulating heavy vehicles along Malecon

SANTO DOMINGO. The City Council of the National District approved yesterday the Ordinance that regulates traffic of heavy vehicles along George Washington Avenue (Malecon) between Maximo Gomez Avenue and Arzobispo Meriño.

They also approved other traffic ordinances such as the one that regulates garbage collection in open bodied trucks in the Colonial Zone and the Central Polygon of the city. The ordinance that regulates the use of motorcycle escorts as a traffic privilege was postponed. They approved, as a test, that for 90 days they would see a Maximization of Traffic, by limiting left turns, and they postponed the issues of traffic in Arroyo Hondo III and Las Praderas.

In addition the City Council approved the Arcon Method for training dogs for disasters, the expenditures carried out between July and September 2012, which were for RD$652.2 million, and they postponed a decision on the regulation for zoning in Gascue.

In the case of the Malecon project, the City Council ordered the municipal administration to create signage indicating the prohibition of heavy traffic, as well as the publication of the Ordinance and communicating the decision to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (AMET), the representatives of the Justice Department that work in the Special Traffic Tribunal of the National District.

Content

The council members took the measure on heavy traffic along the Malecon, arguing that "George Washington Avenue is the tourist boulevard of Santo Domingo, and the area where the principle hotel of the First City in the New World are located, as well as being the main access to the tourist port of Don Diego."

With the Ordinance, the use of the avenue is restricted for the following vehicles: "All vehicles with a gross weight of over 3.5 tons, longer than 8 meters, wider than 2.5 meters and higher than 4 meters."

It also includes the prohibition for containers, platforms, cement mixers and cement pumps and back-haulers and special construction equipment.

90 day test run

The City Council decided to test the prohibition of left turns on 27 de Febrero Avenue at the intersections of Nuñez de Caceres, Carmen Mendoza de Cornielle and Tiradentes. They also incuded the idea of no left turns on Ortega Y Gasset with Padre Fantino Falco and at Gustavo Mejia Ricart and John F. Kennedy avenues.

The Ordinance also includes Maximo Gomez, where no left turns will be permitted on Mexico and Bolivar.

These changes will undergo a 90 day test period at the end of which they will create a report, written by the technical personnel of the city government and the AMET regarding the results and efficiency and the effects on traffic of the National District. With the report, they will create the final proposals.