Witterdrift road upgrade delayed despite significant dangers
Wittedrift Road upgrade delayed despite significant dangers Words & photos: Nikki Ridley
Alarmed by the dangers posed to motorists and the schoolchildren bussed along the MR395 – known to most as “the Wittedrift Road’ -members of the Boschfontein Residents Association came together on Saturday April 8 to voice their concerns over a four-year postponement on an upgrade originally scheduled to begin this year.
An email notification dated March 15 stated: “The construction of the road has been moved out to 2021. That is a Provincial decision and it is mostly based on funding constraints.”
According to residents, this ‘unacceptable delay’ comes after a prior official notification, dated March 13, 2014 (a copy of which has been supplied to CXPRESS), which expressly details the urgent need for the road (designated as ‘Main Road’) to be resurfaced and upgraded to ‘Class 3 Standard Roads’.
Also listed is the urgent need for various repairs to pipe culverts, new signage, and road markings that would improve general safety of users.
The upgrade was planned along with that of Plett’s Airport Road, the latter project now completed.
Residents gathered at last Saturday’s meeting wanted to know “what happened to the money” – because “we were promised it” and because “the road is a potential death-trap”.
Dangers posed by the dirt road that winds down between the N2 and Wittedrift are not new, the meeting and approach to the press motivated primarily by questions over the apparent renege on an urgent upgrade for which all preliminary work and impact assessments have been completed.
Said Boschfontein resident Peter Rae: “The Residents’ Association was assured by the Department in 2016 that work would begin in January 2017, as soon as tarring of the Airport Road had been completed.
“When this didn’t happen, we were told the work had been postponed until 2021. This delay is completely unacceptable. The Department acknowledged the urgency and the safety issues as far back as 2012, when they asked for planning approval.
“So postponing the tarring until eight years after permission was granted is utterly ridiculous.”
Rae said he would be seeking a meeting with the Department as soon as possible to find out what had happened to the funds already allocated to the project, and to urge immediate action.
“We also want to know why heavy logging trucks are allowed to use the road, as they are the primary cause of the surface degradation,” he said.
“In the meantime, we hope that publicising the dangers would warn everyone to take extra care on this treacherous surface.”
At the meeting, it was also explained that there was an added urgency as existing dangers had been exacerbated by recent fires that devastated the area.
In many sections, the upper slopes are now full of dead trees that can (and reportedly already have) started falling onto the road, and the slopes below the road are all but denuded of what was once the only barrier to stop cars tumbling off the road in the event of a slide or accident.
In addition, there is concern that increased soil erosion from the burned slopes will further undermine the structure of the road.
Furthermore, residents cited the likelihood of a significant increase in traffic along with planned development in Green Valley, and on-going damage being done to the road by the logging trucks from nearby plantations.
However, the major worry voiced by all in attendance at the meeting was the safety of children transported to and from school via the MR395 every weekday in minibus taxis and buses.
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