For whom the hell tolls

The Third Umpire clearly enjoyed his dig at the fishing village in the Cape following the finding by TomTom that Johannesburg is no longer the most congested city in the country. But when you read the TomTom report, a few other facts catch the eye. It advances four reasons why Johannesburg has improved its congestion ranking — the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, open-road tolling, the introduction of intelligent transport systems and the Gautrain.

The reality is that three of the four factors can be directly attributed to e-tolling on the Gauteng highway network. I do think Premier David Makhura and the mayors of Pretoria and Johannesburg should read the entire report. Imagine the next meeting between Herman Mashaba and Patricia de Lille where they brag about the achievements of their cities. “Our traffic is better than yours … because we have e-tolls and you refuse to accept them.”

Andrew Barnard

Orange Grove