Major plans to ease Cape Town traffic on the N1 announced!
Two major plans have been unveiled in order to ease the congestion on the N1. As well as reducing Cape Town traffic, they aim to make the roads safer too!
The first of these plans include a construction project, worth R487 million, which has already been started on a portion of the N1. Motorists will experience some inconvenience over the next three years as additional lanes are added on and bridges are repaired.
The city council is also looking for other ways to reduce the impact that freight trucks have on Cape Town traffic, in order to minimise congestion and accidents, as well as ensuring the safe convenient transport of dangerous and expensive goods.
The city council’s transport authority – Transport Cape Town (TCT), have also released its strategy for public comment, on how they plan to deal with these issues.
“The N1 is undoubtedly one of the more important roads, particularly in this region, and improving travel times and easing congestion on this road remains an imperative,” said Western Cape Transport MEC Donald Grant.
Construction on the N1 will affect a 9km stretch, starting from Plattekloof Road and ending just beyond the Old Oak interchange. This will affect Cape Town traffic as approximately 120 000 vehicles travel this route each day. Construction is set to be completed in February 2019.
The city council’s mayoral committee member for transport, Brett Heron, stated that roads have been deteriorating prematurely, due to the overloading of freight trucks. This has had a significant effect on Cape Town traffic as it damages the road network.
“The draft strategy proposes certain interventions to reduce the impact of road-based freight on our urban environment.
Two things are very clear: rail must be part of the plan and secondly, we will have to implement innovative solutions to reduce the overall cost of doing business in Cape Town.”
Herron said the strategy recognised the role that freight transport plays in the economy, but that the city council wanted to ensure that this mode of transport was safe and efficient and that the impact on other road users was reduced.
The president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, Janine Myburgh, said while the chamber was not in favour of restricting the movement of heavy vehicles to off-peak hours only, there was a need to improve the flow of traffic on the city’s major roads.
A trip from the northern suburbs to the city centre that used to take only 45 minutes a few years ago, now took 90 minutes in peak traffic times.
“It eats into your working time. Business needs free flow to keep the economy running,” Myburgh said.
Myburgh stated that she did not believe that these improvements to the N1 would discourage people from using public transport.
“People who use public transport will still use it. But we need extra lanes, it’s almost become a hazard,” she said.
Construction work has been restricted to outside the peak Cape Town traffic times, of between 6am and 9am inbound, and 3pm and 7pm outbound.
“All efforts will be made to ensure minimal disruption to traffic during the construction phase of the project.
However motorists must expect reduced lane widths and general speed limits in areas where works are taking place,” Grant said.
In order to minimize the impact on Cape Town traffic, construction will not be carried out simultaneously, on both sides of the carriageway, roadway, ramp nor both terminals of the same interchange.
Source: IOL