SA ROADS A HAZARD - EXPERTS

It's official! I am completely confused! Not always that difficult - to confuse me that is, but this confusion seems to be here to stay.

I understand that new roads need to be built, that new infrastructures need to be put in place to grow certain areas and what have you. However that said - why does it need to be done at the cost of maintaining the existing infrastucture.

We've seen it with Eskom, who have put electricity in a gazillion new homes, but they didn't service and/or maintain the exisiting generators or even put any plans in to build new sub-stations etc and now the whole bloody lot has fallen over - so now even the new homes now don't have electricity.

Then we are probably about to see it happening to the water facilities here in the country - again we got pipes into several/many/most areas where there was no running water previously. Again we did not maintain what we had in place to start off with and now the water, that has always been drinkable and that we prided ourselves in, is no longer so great for human consumption - presuming of course that the pipes can carry the water and have not burst.

Now, here we have a situation with the roads - it appears that we have built a huge number of new roads at the cost of the lack of maintenance to the existing ones! How short sighted is that! Listening to the news last night, the traffic report consisted mainly of robots that were not working (due to the power outages) and motorists being warned of large and dangerous pot holes on every second road and/or off ramp and/or highway! How bizarre is this!

On a more serious note, and even more bizarre - our infrastructure is falling down around us, no-one is being held accountable or responsible - everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else and all I am waiting for now is for this to be blamed on Apartheid, like everything else that goes wrong in this country.

Come on guys, we need to get it together - we want to be viewed as a 1st world country but that will never happen until we sort our shit out!

SA roads a hazard - experts
Helen Bamford
October 07 2006 at 10:10AM

South Africa's roads are in such a shocking state that some are becoming too dangerous to drive on. If nothing is done, within a few years South Africa could be on par with Kenya and Uganda, where road infrastructure has all but collapsed. The Automobile Association has received more than 1 000 complaints in the past six weeks about bad roads, some too dangerous to drive on at night. There are already close to 8-million vehicles on our roads, including trucks and buses. That figure is expected to leap to 12-million by 2010.

The Committee for Active Road Safety (Cars), made up of key organisations involved in road safety, said this week South Africa's road system was deteriorating at a rate that would soon have serious consequences for the economy.

This view was backed by Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry deputy director Colin Boyes, who said a strategic plan was needed to address the problem. Cars chairperson Ian Auret said: "The rate of deterioration is quite alarming and posing an increasingly serious threat to the economy and the safety of road users. "In certain areas, national highways have become so bad that using them at night has become completely inadvisable and there are increasing reports of motorists suffering serious damage to their vehicles and accidents when using these roads, even in daytime."

AA spokesperson Gary Ronald said in some cases the roads would have to be rebuilt from their foundations because they had been allowed to deteriorate beyond repair. Even for a relatively narrow road that could add up to R1-million a kilometre. Last year 14 000 people died on SA's roads, with road crashes costing the economy R43-billion. Ronald said road engineers worldwide usually accepted that the road environment could contribute 5 percent or less to a crash. "We believe that in South Africa that could be closer to 10 or 12 percent."

In the 1999/2000 financial year the AA had rated the road network according to a system of "good, bad or impassable" and found then that the government needed to spend in the region of R64-billion." The situation has got substantially worse and we now estimate that R200-billion or more is needed. "The Treasury had given some money towards infrastructure and maintenance for 2010 for major roads, but it was not enough. Ronald said minor routes also needed attention because they had been neglected over the past five years while the focus had been on providing roads in rural areas so communities there would have access to schools and clinics. Normal maintenance had not been done and there was now a five-year backlog, which would take more than a few years to catch up.

Ronald said one reason for the rapid deterioration of the roads was the amount of freight being carried. The good news was that Spoornet had indicated it intended reviving its ailing freight business division. Transnet CEO Maria Ramos recently said Spoornet intended doubling its freight business over the next five years. Spoornet hoped to target between 20 and 25 percent of the general freight market, compared to the current 10 percent. "If they could capture 10 to 20 percent of the freight market it would make a huge difference to the longevity of our roads. It would also contribute to safety on the roads and help with congestion in major cities."

Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Keith Brebnor said some members found it quicker to send their goods to China than to Durban by road. In Johannesburg a bigger concern than bad roads was congestion. "If we don't do something by 2010 we'll be gridlocked," he said. This week the national Transport Department released figures, saying has invested R2.8-billion in improving rail operations and infrastructure; R7.7-billion as part of the taxi recapitalisation programme, R2.3-billion in the bus industry and R3.8-billion in the public transport infrastructure in preparation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on October 07, 2006