All the hoopla a bridge too far

There has been so much hoopla in Port Elizabeth about the pedestrian bridge over the Baakens that one could swear it was a link to bridge the divide between the “haves” and the “have nots” so they can prosper and live.

Life after birth seems to be one of the most difficult processes of nature in our country. In other cities they are building real bridges for traffic and for pedestrians, and here we are not even building bridges to safeguard the lives and health of our residents.

On the busy Uitenhage Road there are none, and on both sides of this motorway residential and commercial developments are on the increase.

One of the BEE-blessed businessmen in the city has lamented how nothing of major significance is happening in the Bay while in other parts of the country there are tall cranes in the harbour and they are visible on city skylines, indicating projects that bring livelihoods and investments, not just vested interests.

The overhead traffic bridges on the N2 should be bursting with action, not only on the one from Korsten to Gelvandale and beyond. There is a need to expand our motorways to Addo and the industrial area near Motherwell.

The route from Commercial Road to Uitenhage and the offramp to the N2 needs expansion as the traffic is getting crazy.

In New Brighton we also want a new bridge. We are tired of being ghettoed, as we were during the apartheid spatial planning days.

There should also be another bridge from Kwazakhele or Seyisi, say, to Grahamstown Road that joins to John Tallant to go over the railway line to Swartkops station past the old power station.

We are still confined and imprisoned in this day and age of the new SA and nobody sees the irony.

Maybe it is because some are more equal than the others and can afford to go and live in Mill Park, Walmer Heights and Lovemere Heights and assume we are all free.