Louis Fourie upgrade starts
The upgrade to Louis Fourie Road, to improve traffic flow, will not affect current traffic substantially.
This is according to the project manager, Peter Henderson, from the consulting engineering company, Hatch Africa, which is administering the contract on behalf of the Western Cape Department of Transport and Public Works. Henderson recently gave a presentation on the plans for the upgrade and discussed how it would take place. He says that during the course of the upgrade, Louis Fourie Road will constantly have two open traffic lanes.
The upgrade of what is Mossel Bay’s main road, stretching from Hartenbos to the Dana Bay turn-off, will take 38 months. The upgrade has already started and local firm, Henra Civil Contractors, is busy with the construction work. This week, the project started with the relocation of services and the relaying of water mains.
Henderson says work will not be directly on the road for the first few months, but next to the railway line alongside the road.
The upgrade of the road includes a new rail-over-bridge at Garrett Street in Voorbaai, a new bridge over the Blinde River as well as a number of small retaining wall structures.
Henderson says a new on- and off-ramp at the N2 at Vyfbrakkefontein Road will also be built and an electrical substation and infrastructure will be relocated. There will also be the placing of new streetlights and traffic signals. A pedestrian sidewalk from the Waboom Road intersection to Sonskynvallei, over a distance of 900m, will also be built so that pedestrians can have safe access along this portion of the road.
The project is expected to be completed in September 2025.