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Traffic troubles

WHEN I set off to Sandton last week, I knew I’d be a little late for my function. After all, if you want to make an early morning appointment on time, you have to leave home before 6:10am, and I was leaving at 6:20.

But I did the canny thing, listened to the radio, and chose a route that would make use of a little bit of the soon-to-be-tolled freeway (from 14th Avenue to William Nicol, for readers in Gauteng) and a bit of the roads that feed on and off the highway.

But there was a blockage as we approached Malibongwe which slowed traffic, and traffic lights out along William Nicol which slowed traffic coming off the highway. William Nicol itself was gridlocked – at one point I watched the clock: it took me 11 minutes to drive one kilometre.

This is the future, it seems.

“We are seeing a clear pattern which shows that congestion levels increase in South Africa as the migration levels from rural areas and towns to cities is increasing rapidly. The traditional responses to tackling congestion, like building new roads or widening existing ones are no longer proving effective.

"The way traffic is managed needs significant change,” says TomTom South Africa's country manager, Daan Henderickx.

By now you’ll have heard the reports about the 6th TomTom Traffic index, just released. You’ll know that on average a driver in Johannesburg experiences an extra 31% in travel time during peak traffic than they would in off-peak/ free flowing traffic.

You’ll know that, on average, South Africans in the main cities spend 10 days a year stuck in traffic.

To paraphrase the famous Facebook song: “And now, you wanna make me pay more for this? Are you @#$%@#$ kidding me?”

I am lucky; I don’t have to spend mornings and evenings stuck in traffic, since I have a home office.

Friends who yearn for a home office tell me their horror stories and if they are to be believed, the wonderful newly expanded, nothing-like-a-national-road-in-Malawi roads in Gauteng have really not done that much to relieve their daily torment.

Which was only to be expected. We’ve known for years that adding lanes or building more roads results in a year or two of relief, soon to be swamped by increasing traffic which leads to increasing congestion which leads to… the same old hell.

"…building more roads results in more driving for a number of reasons: People drive more when there are more roads to drive on, commercial driving and trucking increases with the number of roads, and, to a lesser extent, people migrate to areas with lots of roads.

"Given that new capacity just increases driving, they find that a new lane kilometre of roadway diverts little traffic from other roads." (Tanya Snyder, Property and Environment Research Centre)

Years ago, long before GFIP, even before Gautrain had been opened, I had a dream, and I wrote about it at the time (pity no one read it, hmm?). I dreamt of an integrated transport system that would look like this:

I would catch a lift with a friend or a dedicated taxi service from the end of my road down to a park-and-ride type of area at the 14th Avenue off-ramp onto the N1 north. Or even better, I’d ride my bicycle the four kilometres to the off-ramp (reduced single-passenger car usage would make the roads much safer for cyclists).

There, I’d wait for one of the hundreds of large, luxury buses that drive backwards and forwards along the very free-flowing highways (there’d still be cars on the highways, but the numbers would be much lower than at present).

I’d pop my bicycle into a special compartment under the bus and climb aboard. In my comfortable seat, I’d have half an hour to work on my laptop, play games, read, knit, listen to music, munch my breakfast in peace, whatever.

At my stop – say, just off the Rivonia off-ramp – I’d retrieve my bicycle and head for my destination.

Or if there was no bike involved, I’d catch another of the dedicated taxis, now providing work for taxi drivers who’d lost a route when the system was launched. They’d come in a range of sizes, with a range of fares: if you wanted to be taken to the door of your building, a little out of the way, you’d pay a small premium for a door-to-door service.

Otherwise, larger buses would constantly ferry people from the nodes at off-ramps and junctions of main roads to the principal destinations: the middle of Sandton, for example. People could walk a few blocks from the drop-off.

A little walking and biking built into the day would be good for us, wouldn’t it?

For areas far from the freeways and bigger roads, a decent bus service and revamped, expanded Metro rail service would bring people in to the network.

A publicity campaign has managed to make travelling on Gautrain funky – why could a similar campaign not make public transport seem hip and cutting edge, all swish and gleaming metallic colours?

My dream felt like a little bit of heaven to me (at the time I had to commute once a week, and even that was a nightmare). No more stop-start driving, road rage, and wasted time.

But ah, ‘twas not to be…

 - Fin24

*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.





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