Transport minister to officially open R71 Moria interchange

LIMPOPO – The Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters will officially open the completed R71 Moria Interchange in Limpopo on Thursday as part of the October Transport Month (OTM) campaign.

Peters said a solid collaboration between the Department of Transport, its entity SANRAL and the ZCC made the realisation of the Interchange possible.

According to her, the OTM is aimed at showcasing infrastructure projects with major socio economic spin offs in all modes of transport namely roads, aviation, maritine, rail and public transport.

Limpopo Provincial Spokesperson for Transport, Kagiso Mootane said the Minister will interact with members of the community and church to report back on the successes achieved and progress made in the transport sector but also challenges encountered in the process and issues that might be raised by the community.

“The R71 Road interchange is located on the Headquarters of the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) in Moria which falls within the Polokwane Local Municipality in the Capricorn District of Limpopo province. It is a major link between Polokwane and the eastern tourism area of Tzaneen in the Mopani District,” she said.

“Just over a year ago, the R71 interchange towards Moria had many challenges that included constant congestion — resulting from a clogged-up two lane road running from Polokwane to Tzaneen, and consequently, a single lane for traffic coming from the opposite direction. This traffic jam would reach its peak around Easter time, when millions of pilgrims gather at the R71 interchange to access Moria, their central place of worship,” she said.

“The need to rehabilitate and upgrade this section of the road was of paramount importance to sustain the traffic along the route for the next 20 years. The total length of the road is approximately 49, 0km. The project starts at Moria (km 39, 0) and ends in Tzaneen (km 88, 0),” she said.

“There were a host of unavoidable road safety risks, as cars wanting to make a right turn from the interchange into Moria would do so purely at their own risk — without a guidance system or traffic control measures. To aggravate matters, road users would have to be vigilant of the thousands of pedestrians alighting minibus taxis, a factor which had contributed to the growing number of pedestrian fatalities. But this was back in 2014, and the situation has improved dramatically since then, thanks to the intervention of SANRAL,” she said.

“The upgrade cost close to R140 million. The project started in April 2014 and the aim was to have the road fully operational before the Easter weekend in 2015 which was achieved.  Improvements that were made included widening, overlaying and doubling of carriageways on the R71 and construction of a pedestrian walkway on the shoulders and at the interchange,” she said.

“Pedestrian safety was also taken into consideration which resulted in the construction of access to the taxi lay-bye on the R71 giving access to Moria with walkways. Median lightning along the dual R71 from km mark 34 to km mark 39 and an arched concrete bridge were also added,” he said.

“During the improvement period 15 SMME subcontractors were contracted which resulted in 286 people employed. The total spend on wages was close to R17 million and 21 individuals received skills training. The local community formed of the significant workforce that worked on the project,” said Mootane.