Bypass could be a win, not a loss
NEIL van der Spuy has much to say about what he calls “a serious and disgraceful proposal by the roads department of the provincial government.
“This despite the desperate objections of the larger community of Hermanus, and even visitors.” (Cape Times, Thursday, July 16).
I doubt whether the larger community of Hermanus are even aware of the details of the present proposal, or that a bypass has been on the plans for Hermanus for over 60 years.
I guess I am just as selfish as the next man, and I have friends who might be affected by the road if it was developed to its ultimate, logical conclusion, as a proper bypass of Hermanus, along an alignment between the mountain and the town, as it was first envisaged over 60 years ago.
Mainly for the second reason I tend to keep out of the arguments for and against the proposal.
But a diatribe like that produced by Van der Spuy, who doesn’t even live in Hermanus and is only an occasional visitor, cannot just be ignored.
As a state pensioner and full-time resident in Hermanus since 1998, I don’t really care whether what van der Spuy calls “a needless and undesirable 3km of provincial main road” is built or not built.
If the bypass is not built then we will have fewer visitors in Hermanus, which is good for permanent residents like myself, but if it is built then it will be much better for the public of the province as a whole, and certainly for the business people in Hermanus.
As a retired civil engineer who first visited Hermanus shortly after joining the SAR&H in 1955, while working under the control of the then-District Harbour Engineer, Fishing Harbours, Piet Grobbelaar, I am aware that even then a sort of bypass existed/was on the plans (before construction of much of the present roads infrastructure).
As a transportation planner with provincial experience in the urban areas of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London I am also aware of the provincial needs to develop a network of roads throughout the province – of a lower standard perhaps than the national road network but also with relatively free flow of traffic – to facilitate easy travel around the province.
And as a resident of Hermanus, I am aware that the extension of Hermanus Heights towards the mountain and the golf course development has made it very difficult for the province to get the free-flowing connection so essential for the success of their network of provincial roads, and the coastal route that eventually reaches the bottleneck of Hermanus and in particular discourages through traffic beyond this point in peak periods.
The total disregard of the needs for a future bypass road by all concerned in the planning of these developments is unfortunate, and this is what has pushed the road towards the mountains and further into the Fernkloof reserve, not some evil and disgraceful action of the provincial roads department.
The traffic flow on Main Road in holiday time is just as worrisome to the residents who live along it, nay, even worse for them than the traffic along a new bypass would be to those who have built their houses close to where a bypass route was planned to run.
And the bottleneck that is Main Road through town destroys the free flow of traffic – not only for residents of these parts but more importantly also for tourists, the lifeblood of many in towns like ours. Also, the municipality has introduced speed bumps into Mountain Road and has not surfaced the portion of the route behind the golf course development, something that made this natural bypass route unattractive for throughtraffic because, I believe, of the influence from the residents in the areas concerned (a nimby attitude perhaps?). Without this local intervention the problem would not be quite what it now is.
But then these roads are not really suitable for handling this traffic because of the numerous property accesses along them, so perhaps the residents have a point.
Parts of the national road network in the province were also built by the province as provincial roads but then incorporated into the national road network and if Sanral have their way, certain portions of this national road system, for example from Cape Town to Bot River, will become trunk roads.
If and when the N2 becomes a toll road as far as Bot River, a lot more traffic will use the route around the coast to avoid the high toll fees and the need for a better route through Hermanus will become essential. To get back to the present proposal: The route above the school fields is to be preferred to the lower alternative proposal.
The encroachment into Fernkloof is unfortunate, but cannot be helped and the road could be put further away from Mountain Road, if there were not so much of a fuss made about this aspect, which really doesn’t practically affect the Fernkloof reserve as much as made out by those against the road for other reasons.
With respect to the encroachment into the wetland along Fairways Avenue, I fought against the proposal when the golf course extension was originally planned to destroy the whole of the wetland turning it into a practice course, and was pleased when we were successful in retaining most of the wetland.
However, the planned incursion is relatively minor, and I feel that even a little more of the wetland, a section alongside Fairways avenue, which is not really the essential part of the wetland, could well be utilised, so retaining a better circulation for traffic within Eastcliff and allowing for noise attenuation methods to be introduced.
I attended what van der Spuy calls “the recent ‘whitewash’ public open house meeting” and found both municipal and provincial officials and their consultants eager to encourage and discuss questions.