Caledon Street road closure
Megan Bester, George:
As a resident of Bodorp whose road is off Caledon Street, I have to express to you the absolute idiocy of the method to the road closure for the purposes of “upgrading the road” (aka using up the budget). There was, firstly, little wrong with Caledon Street to start with, as far as I could see when compared to, say, my street that has never been upgraded in the ten years I have lived here, and was a mess when I moved in here.
That aside, instead of digging the road up in sections, allowing for a shorter stop-go distance, they have decided to dig up virtually the whole street, resulting in a very long Stop-Go waiting time and, for those of us who have no choice but to turn onto Caledon to get anywhere, an extremely frustrating guessing game.
It seems they did not think through the fact that this street is in a residential area, which means through traffic for all the streets that come off Caledon, as well as every single person that lives on the actual street. This is not in the middle of the farmlands where there are no streets or driveways for miles. When I exit my road, it is a gamble every time as to, firstly, which way the traffic is flowing, and secondly, whether or not they will even change the direction to the one I need to go in. The bottom Stop-Go station is so far away that it is impossible for me to tell whether there are cars waiting there, or not. There is no one at my street to direct me and the other residents and there is no one on any street directing any traffic after knock-off time. Now today I notice they have closed off most of the streets that come off Caledon in an attempt to minimise the traffic coming off the streets and driving the wrong way. However there are quite a few of the streets after Darling Street, including mine, that are cul-de-sacs, due to the railway line, leaving us no choice but to turn onto Caledon to go about our daily business. Consequently I am having to leave earlier for work and arrive late at my children’s activities in order to waste time figuring out whether or not I can safely turn left onto the street. Perhaps the engineer in charge could let us know why it is necessary to dig up such a long stretch at a time. I’m quite sure that they will not be working on that entire section all the time. It seems like no one even thought about what the repercussions would be and they just went ahead and blindly did what suited THEM, not giving a thought to the residents of the area. Honestly, George Municipality, you could have planned this one a little better.
* Chantel Edwards-Klose, municipal spokesperson: Direct contact will be made with the letter writer to discuss and resolve issues noted in letter. George Municipality has communicated directly via personal visits and delivered brochures to all of the homes affected prior to the road construction. Any further queries can be directed to HilLand Environmental Management Consultants on 044 889 0229.