Happy birthday, High Street bridge

IT IS NOW a year since work began on the bridge at the top of High Street. The bridge over the railway line will ultimately provide an alternative route up to the hospital, Vryheid prison and the Vryheid Hill residential area. Up to now, the only roadway up has been East Street (and an old dirt road from behind the old power station).

Word is that the bridge, after a hiccup of a couple of months, should be finished at the end of May. Why work stopped, the real reason, is not known. It was not, apparently, because it was discovered that the northern on-ramp would infringe upon a neighbouring property, that would need to be acquired, and that the owner refused to sell. That, apparently, is not true. But what the reason for the hold up was, has not been disclosed.

Nor has it ever been disclosed why the bridge has been constructed at right-angles to the railway line but obliquely to the line of the lower and upper sections of High Street. This has necessitated “dog leg” intersections on the north and south ramps to the bridge.

The final configuration of the northern ramp is not clear from the work done to it up to Monday this week, but it might entail the sort of corners that would be difficult to negotiate in an articulated truck.