November 10, 2008 Edition 1

Tony Carnie

THE toll man plans to set up extra cash collection booths on two of Durban’s busiest freeways.

In the north, the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) has published plans to build a ramp plaza outside the new King Shaka International Airport to collect tolls of about R9 each from all Durban-bound cars leaving the airport along the N2 freeway.

Further south, Sanral remains determined to create a new toll plaza on the N2 southern freeway at Isipingo - despite vociferous opposition from local commuters, businesses, the eThekwini Municipality and the KwaZulu-Natal government.

Although plans for the Isipingo toll plaza have been public know- ledge for several years, Sanral has come under increasing pressure from Durban’s business chamber and transport MEC Bheki Cele to either scrap the proposal or come up with alternative funding for the proposed N2 Wild Coast toll road.

The municipality’s transport advisory board also fears the Isipingo plaza and Wild Coast toll-road plan are being driven by private-sector construction interests, rather than a “rational need and planning exercise”.

The Wild Coast plan has been submitted under the name of Sanral, via an unsolicited bid proposal by a private consortium made up of Group Five; Grinaker-LTA; Intertoll; Hawkins, Hawkins and Osborne; Stewart Scott International; WBHO Construction; Kagiso Financial and Rand Merchant Bank.

Later today, a draft environmental impact report on the Wild Coast toll plan is due to be published for comment, but Sanral has indicated that no significant changes have been made to the original plan for a toll plaza at Isipingo. Sanral has confirmed that it plans to build a new interchange on the N2 north, about 4km north of the Mdloti interchange.

The interchange will provide direct access to the new airport, which is due for completion before the 2010 soccer World Cup.

Minimise impact

Sanral also confirmed that it would pay for the interchange - not the Airports Company as previously agreed.

It could not give an accurate estimate of the final toll fee to be levied at the new airport interchange from March 2010, but studies suggested it would be somewhere between R6 and R9 for light vehicles.

Asked to explain why it had chosen to build a ramp plaza for southbound vehicles only, Sanral said: “The rationale is to minimise the impact on the motorist. Two ramp plazas (one in each direction from and to the south) will double the infrastructure cost, and it is reasoned that a motorist will be less affected (paying a toll) on the return journey than on the inbound journey to catch a flight.”

An agency spokesman said he could not provide accurate statistics at this stage, but traffic volumes on this part of the freeway were expected to almost double once the airport opened (from about 26 000 vehicles a day to 46 000).

Asked about non-toll access routes to the airport and the like- lihood of congestion on other nearby public roads by toll-dodgers, he said it was inevitable that some motorists would choose to find other routes, which might include the R102, the R614 or the old M4 coastal road.

Asked what discussions had been held with eThekwini or the KZN transport department to cater for road upgrades or widening of certain routes to cater for new airport and tradeport traffic, he said there had been “extensive discussions” with several affected parties during the environmental impact assessment process.

On suggestions that Sanral aimed to fleece airport traffic, he said there was no plan to target airport traffic specifically, but these motorists would have to “pay a proportion of the economic benefit received from accessing the airport via the N2″.

He also confirmed plans to build extra lanes on the N2 and other routes some time after 2013, which was about five to seven years earlier than if no airport had been built.

Asked to comment on previous hints from Sanral that a new toll plaza might be built on the N3 freeway near Cato Ridge, he said its road construction and maintenance budget remained tight.

However, there was no immediate plan to pursue the option of the Cato Ridge plaza.

Posted on November 10th, 2008
Filed under: Newspaper and Media