Zandvlei Trust 

R300 (N21) Toll Road Articles

by Mel Tripp of The Cape Bird Club on 09/05/2004.

As an interested and affected party, I strongly object to the N21/R300 Toll
Road.

Why is Penway, a consortium made up of road engineers and civil engineers generously offering, totally unsolicited, to do some road maintenance and road construction within Metropolitan Cape Town?

GREED!

The proposals have no real benefit to the broader public in Metropolitan Cape Town. Little, real concern has been given to the social, economic or environmental sustainability of the Metro and the Western Cape. The draft EIA is seriously flawed.

As Western Cape residents we are the custodians of a small area of the planet which houses an entire plant kingdom of great bio-diversity which the international treaties to which we are now signatory say we should maintain.
Areas of this encompass the last remnants of the Cape Flats wetlands (Zandvlei, Zeeokoevlei, Rondevlei, Strandfontein Waste Water Works), which will be tragically lost or seriously degraded still further...This must not be allowed to happen.

No one asked Penway to come up with a road proposal (tolled or otherwise) and their unsolicited bid offers few (if any) short, medium or long term benefits. The current road alignment promotes urban sprawl and urban creep, does not promote the delivery of a functional and integrated transport system, actively discourages urban renewal and if done concurrently with present planning on the urban edge, limits the potential for Western Cape residents to live in a sustainable environment... Improve Public Transport!

The environmental clause of the South African Constitution states that an environment should be well maintained to give future generations something of quality. There is little support for this toll road from business (including agri-business), labour or civil society, conservationists or individuals. The tolling of roads through urban areas is not in keeping with the maintenance of good urban planning... something essential to ensure our long term sustainability. A far wiser solution is for much Improved Public transport!

The R300/N21 is the only proposed toll road in South Africa which has its entire route within a metropolitan region. 
Historical lack of maintenance is a prime factor in motivating for the tolling of roads. The need to maintain all roads can be done more efficiently and equitably by initiating a fuel levy... road infrastructure can then be better designed to satisfy local development needs, not independent corporations greed! 
KILL THE TOLL ROAD NOT THE ENVIRONMENT!

by Jonathan Cartwright of DEF (Durbanville Environmental Forum) on 05/05/2004.

The 'we tolled you... so' roadshow.

The R300/N21 protagonists are at it again. The question Western Cape residents should be asking themselves is why? Penway, a consortium made up of road engineers and civil engineers are generously offering to do some road maintenance and road construction within Metropolitan Cape Town. This, they say, will save the residents from a fate worse than congestion... but who is fooling who?

Although much of the road alignment was earmarked 30 or more years ago, it would be good to see urban planners determining growth and development having re-evaluated a rather old and now defunct planning scenario. At the time the plan was drawn, the man in the political driving seat was BJ Vorster... and the engieering was being designed to satisfy his parties requirements. Little, if any, concern was being given to the social, economic or environmental sustainability of the Western Cape and as a politically pariah nation we were not signatory to many of the international treaties to which we now subscribe.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD) held in Rio in 1992 came up with the tenet that we should think global and act local... as Western cape residents we are the custodians of a small area of the planet which houses an entire plant kingdom of great bio-diversity which the international treaties to which we are now signatory say we should maintain.

No one asked Penway to come up with a road proposal(tolled or otherwise) and their unsolicited bid offers few(if any) short, medium or long term benefits. The current road alignment promotes urban sprawl and urban creep, does not promote the delivery of a functional and integrated transport system, actively discourages urban renewal and if done concurrently with present planning on the urban edge, limits the potential for Western Cape residents to live in a sustainable environment. (Not today, not tomorrow but probably within a few lifetimes).

The environmental clause of the South African Constitution states that an environment should be well maintained to give future generations something of quality.It offers those yet unborn a place in which to have a sustainable future.

There is little support for this toll road from business (including agri-business), labour or civil society. The tolling of roads through urban areas is not in keeping with the maintenance of good urban planning... something essential to ensure our long term sustainability.

Interesting:-
The only section of the R300/N21 which is currently recognised as being a road of National status is the section between the N1 and the N2 (although this section also plays a vital role in the metropolitan road infrastructure).

The proposed road will meet up with the N7 which will increase the section of national significance by nearly 100%.

When the original toll proposal for Chapman's Peak Drive was first discussed there was no Provincial policy on toll roads. The discussions with regard to provincial policy on the tolling of roads was not done by means of an open and transparent public participation process.

The N1/N2 toll road proposals, although approved in principle by the late Minister Dullah Omar, have great potential for re-evaluation under constitutional law due to the lack of alternative routes(toll roads were originally initiated to put roads where no road had ever been before... not to allow a monopoly on the maintenance of an existing road).

SANRAL (the South African National Road Agency Limited) informed Penway where they required the road to start and finish to satisfy SANRAL's requirements. Informed and integrated planning does not revolve around satisfying only the needs of road engineers.

The R300/N21 will, if approved, be the only toll road in South Africa which has its entire route within a metropolitan region.

Historical lack of maintenance is a prime factor in motivating for the tolling of roads... but we should remember that all the roads being proposed as toll roads were funded using tax payers money.

The need to maintain all roads can be done more efficiently and equitably by initiating a fuel levy... road infrastructure can then be better designed to satisfy local development needs.

Present models suggest that within 5 years of completion the R300/N21 will be as congested at peak hours as the N1 and N2 are presently.

The question:-
The future of the Western Cape is at stake... are you going to do something towards a brighter future?