ANARCHY reigns at night along Gonubie Main Road as a narrow 3.4m temporary lane causes traffic to bottleneck for thousands of homeward-bound commuters.
Cars are forced to back up for several kilometres along the N2 and Old Transkei Road. But some relief is in sight.
On Tuesday night Ian Swartz, the CBM Africa engineer in charge of the R150-million Buffalo City Metro road-widening project, told 50 Gonubie Ratepayers Association members that the lane will shift towards the centre on to a newly surfaced section tomorrow.
Yesterday residents spoke of their “nightmare” trip home, which caused them to factor in an extra hour of stop-go driving.
Last night, the Dispatch spent 47 minutes sitting in the traffic jam from 6.30pm to 7.17pm.
Drivers ignored a red light as traffic gridlocked under the N2 exchange.
When a motorist exiting Gonubie tried to turn onto the N2 towards Mthatha, Gonubie commuters were reluctant to give way and vehicles were stuck facing each other while the traffic lights changed.
All this went on without a traffic officer in sight.
Swartz said driver behaviour along the road was so bad that they deliberately kept the temporary lane narrow to prevent reckless driving and further deaths and injuries. Two people have died at the roadworks since work started in earnest in April last year after the project was commissioned in 2004.
Swartz told the Dispatch: “Some drivers are texting on their phones and others are overly cautious and travel at 40km/h in the 60km/h roadworks, causing a vacuum in flow.
“The main problem has been speeding, with many drivers hitting 90 to 100km/h and ignoring the temporary diversion, resulting in accidents.”
On the new lane opening tomorrow, Swartz said the width would stay the same at 3.4m “to give the contractor working room and minimise speeding and fatalities”.
He said if the project went “according to schedule” the final goal of having two inbound lanes and two outbound lanes should be reached by Christmas 2014, with only the finishings remaining.
“It will reduce the uncertainty of not being sure of what they are riding over,” he said. — mikel@dispatch.co.za
Relief in sight for Gonubie’s jams
Cars are forced to back up for several kilometres along the N2 and Old Transkei Road. But some relief is in sight.
On Tuesday night Ian Swartz, the CBM Africa engineer in charge of the R150-million Buffalo City Metro road-widening project, told 50 Gonubie Ratepayers Association members that the lane will shift towards the centre on to a newly surfaced section tomorrow.
Yesterday residents spoke of their “nightmare” trip home, which caused them to factor in an extra hour of stop-go driving.
Last night, the Dispatch spent 47 minutes sitting in the traffic jam from 6.30pm to 7.17pm.
Drivers ignored a red light as traffic gridlocked under the N2 exchange.
When a motorist exiting Gonubie tried to turn onto the N2 towards Mthatha, Gonubie commuters were reluctant to give way and vehicles were stuck facing each other while the traffic lights changed.
All this went on without a traffic officer in sight.
Swartz said driver behaviour along the road was so bad that they deliberately kept the temporary lane narrow to prevent reckless driving and further deaths and injuries. Two people have died at the roadworks since work started in earnest in April last year after the project was commissioned in 2004.
Swartz told the Dispatch: “Some drivers are texting on their phones and others are overly cautious and travel at 40km/h in the 60km/h roadworks, causing a vacuum in flow.
“The main problem has been speeding, with many drivers hitting 90 to 100km/h and ignoring the temporary diversion, resulting in accidents.”
On the new lane opening tomorrow, Swartz said the width would stay the same at 3.4m “to give the contractor working room and minimise speeding and fatalities”.
He said if the project went “according to schedule” the final goal of having two inbound lanes and two outbound lanes should be reached by Christmas 2014, with only the finishings remaining.
“It will reduce the uncertainty of not being sure of what they are riding over,” he said. — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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