WATCH: Ballito’s morning traffic headaches

The start of the year means it is back to school for thousands of local children – and back to waiting in morning traffic for thousands of parents.

As the school year commenced the now familiar scenes of traffic in front of Ashton International College and Umhlali Prep play themselves out as frustrated motorists do their best to keep calm as they inch along.

Both Ashton and Umhlali Prep are aware of the problems with traffic in the mornings.

Jonathan de Wet, the chairman of Umhlali Prep’s school governing board (SGB), said they were looking for solutions to the congestion.

“Umhlali Prep’s traffic jams are always worse at the start of the school year,” said de Wet.

With the commencement of the extra curricular program de Wet said they expected the resultant staggering of collection times to help ease the flow of traffic in the afternoons.

It is the traffic in the mornings, however, that is causing the most headaches.

“Nonetheless, Umhlali’s SGB is accutely aware of the congestion issue which is largely as a result of the school only having a single entrance/exit road.

“Attempts at finding or creating a second entrance/exit have so far been unsuccessful.”

“The SGB will continue to actively seek solutions to either solve or alleviate traffic jams.

“One of these may be to redesign the main parking lot and to this end we have engaged with experts to provide us with proposals to improve traffic flow.”

Meanwhile, Ashton’s marketing manager, Jeannie Habig told The Courier that they have already taken steps to alleviate traffic congestion at the school.

“We have created an additional 102 parking bays on our campus and have a ‘drop and go’ zone and a flow zone to help facilitate ease of movement.”

“There is also another entrance, via the school’s sport campus on the other side of the M4, on Garlicke Drive.

“Parents can drop their children at this entrance and they can then walk through the tunnel under the road to reach the main campus for the school day.”

“We are also looking at creating another entrance/exit to the school a bit further down the M4,” said Habig.

“This was definitely a priority for Ashton and we’ve already seen major improvement – there was barely any congestion at all this morning (Friday).”

The Courier has also been in contact with KwaDukuza municipality to find out if they have any plans to deal with the congestion.

Unfortunately KDM communications officer Sphelelo Ngobese said that he is still waiting for feedback from the relevant department before he could issue a statement.

De Wet said they were open to suggestions and that positive ideas would be tabled and seriously considered by the SGB.

If you think you have an idea for how to improve the traffic at Umhlali Prep, email your suggestions to jon@dlh.co.za.

WATCH: Courier journalist Allan Troskie was live in front of Umhlali Prep at the intersection of the R102 and Salt Rock road on Friday morning.

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