Authorities still ignore Shongweni Road problem
According to an estate manager, there have been five accidents in as many weeks along Shongweni Road in Hillcrest.
ACCIDENTS continue to occur along the notorious Shongweni Road stretch in Hillcrest and authorities have failed to take any action.
According to Ron van Rooyen, estate manager of the Plantations Home-owners’ Association, there have been five accidents in five weeks along Shongweni Road in Hillcrest.
“In view of the fact that the traffic count undertaken by Bala Traffic Survey Services indicated a traffic flow around this dangerous intersection of 11 801 vehicles in a 12-hour period on 14 October, it is becoming increasingly apparent that some sort of signalisation/traffic islands/traffic lights is urgently needed. This average of a few vehicles short of 1 000 vehicles migrating around this intersection in an hour, without traffic control, is horrendous to say the least,” said Van Rooyen.
Ward 10 councillor, Rick Crouch, said that Shongweni Road is classified as a provincial road, which makes it the responsibility of the KZN Department of Transport (DoT), but he has tried for years to get the DoT and the eThekwini Transport Authority to do something about the problem, but they claim said that it is not their responsibility but that of The Plantations Estate.
“This is one of many cases locally that is a good example of ‘tombstone legislation’, where a certain number of people have to die before the departments will do anything about the problem.”
Numerous e-mails and phone calls to the DoT remained answered at the time of going to print.
