220 000km of 'nowhere' roads
On the back of Cols posting about road classifications this story came to light wilst I read the "local" newspapers( Local being SA)
And we thought our roads are bad........they have lost the roads......mmmmm How do you lose a road? Third world anythings possible!
South Africas 220 000km of 'nowhere' roads
August 03 2004 at 11:25AM
Where have all the KwaZulu-Natal roads gone? Road experts say more than two-thirds of the province's roads have "disappeared"
because of "ineffective administration".
The roads haven't actually vanished, of course. It's just that they don't show up on any maps or official records.
And while provincial transport officials deny any responsibility, Don Ross, a University of Cape Town (UCT) economics professor and a roads
specialist, says about half of the country's roads, and as much as two-thirds of roads in KwaZulu-Natal, have "disappeared".
Now Ross has pleaded for a national inventory of the country's roads, using global information systems and satellite tracking.
'Many roads slipped through the cracks'
According to Ross, South Africa had a plethora of road authorities before 1994, each responsible for different types of roads. However, since the
advent of democracy, all roads not administered by the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) became provincial responsibilities, even
though municipalities participated in aspects such as planning, funding and maintenance and were de facto in charge of urban roads.
However, in devolving the responsibilities of the old administrative structures, many roads "slipped through the cracks".
Ross says another critical need for a developing country such as South Africa was to create a proper classification system for the nation's
roads. He pointed out that there was no national protocol for classifying roads.
For example, national highways, arterial roads and "little tracks that service homes" are not classified uniformly across provinces.
According to the latest independent figures, the declared provincial road network in KwaZulu-Natal consists of just more than 27 000km, which the
provincial government is supposed to maintain.
But according to independent civil engineering consultant Pierre Cronje: "Most engineers, even within the provincial government, would agree
that there are another 40 000km of roads that have not been declared as part of the provincial network, or legally assigned to the new wall-to-wall
municipality system."
Cronje, who specialises in strategic planning and policy development, says a recent document published by the national Department of Transport
acknowledges there are at least 220 000km of uncharted roads in the country. In the lowest category, this might include many small roads, but most of
these "orphans" are by no means just cattle tracks.
Cronje reckons that major routes in the tribal lands north of Pietermaritzburg, where more than a million people live, serve permanent houses and
businesses, and are adequately constructed by grader operators to be suitable for sedan drivers after a rainstorm.
However, they don't appear on the official log, says Cronje, who says each and every segment of road network has to be allocated or assigned to
either the provincial or local government.
Meanwhile, the head of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport Kwazi Mbanjwa has dismissed the experts' suggestion that the problem stems from
ineffective administration.
Mbanjwa said the department established a multi-disciplinary team in 1996.
Its task was to scientifically verify and map the extent of local road needs, and to make recommendations at provincial and district-by-district
levels.
He said a scientific study had led to the compilation of a report which identified an 11 400km backlog of rural roads that needed to be constructed in
the province.
"To date, the transport department has already reduced this backlog by more than 6 000km," said Mbanjwa.
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posted on 4/8/04 at 09:22 PM
