November 18, 2008 Edition 2

Tony Carnie

DURBAN commuters and businessmen have been urged to gather in their thousands in Amanzimtoti at 6.30pm tonight to oppose plans to build new toll plazas at Isipingo and Park Rynie, as part of the N2 Wild Coast toll road proposal.

If the project goes ahead, South Coast motorists will face toll fees of about R16 a day for their journey to central Durban and back. Motorists will pay a R320 toll fee to drive from Durban to East London.

In addition to three mainline plazas – at Isipingo, Park Rynie and Oribi – motorists joining or leaving the N2 will also have to contend with seven new ramp plazas at Joyner Road, Moss Kolnick Road, Adams Road, Umkomaas, Pennington, Park Rynie and Scottburgh.

Last week, the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) published a draft environmental impact report for the Wild Coast toll road to be built by a private- sector consortium that includes Group Five, Grinaker-LTA and Rand Merchant Bank.

But instead of holding a public meeting to present the results of the report, Sanral consultants have organised a public “open day” at Amanzimtoti Civic Centre from 10am to 7.30pm today.

The open-day concept has been criticised as a deliberate strategy to dilute criticism of the project and forestall co-ordinated mass resistance.

“Sanral is trying to divide and rule the community by making presentations to little groups of people in dribs and drabs throughout the day, and to avoid direct confrontation with a single, large group of angry commuters,” said Ted Holden, a spokesman for the Upper South Coast Anti-Toll Alliance.

‘Confrontation’

“But we really hope that motorists, minibus taxi commuters, businesses and other opponents will heed our call to arrive in large numbers at 6.30pm at the Amanzimtoti Civic Centre so that the presenters are forced to respond to our questions and concerns in a public forum.

“We think it is important to have a bit of a confrontation over these proposals.”

Holden said he also hoped that Sanral boss Nazir Alli would attend the meeting, along with senior eThekwini metro council officials and transport MEC Bheki Cele.

Cele and eThekwini have voiced strong criticism of the project over the past two years because of concerns that Durban motorists and South Durban industries are being asked to subsidise the cost of building an expensive new road through the rugged valleys of the Eastern Cape.

Sanral has not disclosed final toll-pricing plans, but it has published some toll proposals, which it says are “highly speculative”.

The proposals are broken down into “low”, “middle” and “high” scenarios, based on 2006 prices.

They indicate that motorists are likely to pay about R50 in tolls on a one-way trip from Durban to Margate or Port Edward.

According to Sanral consultants CCA Environmental, only a small proportion of the government fuel levy and other road-user costs are being spent on road building.

CCA Environmental calculated that South African road users paid about R44 billion to the national fiscus by way of fuel levies, VAT and licence fees in 2005, but only R10.6 billion was spent on building or maintaining national and provincial roads.

It noted that 60% of untolled national roads were older than their 20- to 25-year design life and were likely to deteriorate rapidly because of insufficient maintenance funds.

For this reason, Sanral regarded tolling as “an appropriate and successful funding mechanism” to address the funding gaps.

Posted on November 19th, 2008
Filed under: Newspaper and Media