Increased traffic volumes and developments drive R300 ring road project
THE Department of Transport and Public Works was looking to complete the next phase of its envisaged ring road around the metropole with an extension of the R300.
The department hoped to better accommodate traffic volumes and improve the road’s safety by broadening the R300 into a 6-lane freeway.
Provincial Transport and Public Works spokesperson Jandre Bakker said the project was currently in its concept and viability phase and undergoing an environmental impact assessment (EIA) application process being facilitated by Guillaume Nel Environmental Consultants (GNEC).
A GNEC spokesperson said this project would assist with alleviating pressure on the network which arose due to increasing traffic volumes on primary routes and the continuous influx of more permanent residents to the Western Cape.
The GNEC spokesperson said this project was planned for and provisioned about 49 years ago, when the road reserve was proclaimed in 1973.
The proposed works under this application include: extending the existing R300 as a 6-lane freeway from the N1 to the urban edge north of Wellington Road.
De Bron Road, Legato Drive and Wellington Road will have two-lane ramp connections and two-lane termini at the crossing roadway. The first lane of each ramp connection will merge with the freeway lane and the second ramp lane will become an auxiliary lane between interchanges.
UCT professor in Transport Planning and Engineering and SA Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) president Marianne Vanderschuren welcomed the project and recommended this upgrade be used to address the high fatality rates on the R300, specifically pedestrian fatalities.
“We need to remember that we cannot ‘build our way out of congestion’.
“While in the short term, congestion will be alleviated, in the long term extra infrastructure will generate more traffic and therefore new congestion.
We need to make sure that we view transportation holistically,” Vanderschuren said.
In June last year, Open Streets Cape Town hosted a debate to discuss this extension and one of the key insights was that the project should not be designed for private cars, but rather for the economy – which meant placing public transport, and the needs of the population who relied on public transport, first.
The Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata), Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta) and Golden Arrow Bus Services supported the project as well as its intention to alleviate congestion and make the roads safer.