Brett John heads the group that is calling for measures to be taken along the portion of road which stretches from the CBD river bridge through to the stop street at the end of Main Road in Doonside.
“Over the years there have been a number of terrible accidents on this stretch of road,” he said. “Due to the high speed that vehicles frequently travel on this road, indigenous animal life near the road has also suffered great loss.
Brett said he has taken this matter up with ward 97 councillor Andre Beetge at the community police sector meetings and he in turn, has taken the matter up with eThekwini Municipality, but to date no policing of this stretch of road has been done by either RTI or Metro Police.
According to Brett, Kingsway is classified as a ‘class three, high-order’ road – a road that needs to transmit high volumes of traffic as quickly as possible. “While this may be appropriate for certain sections of Kingsway, it is inappropriate for other sections where residential property access leads directly onto a single-lane road, making it difficult for vehicles to easily enter the road during peak traffic times. The absence of a ‘glide-in’ secondary lane to this road simply exacerbates the problem.”
The stretch of road is also dangerous for pedestrians, walkers, runners, cyclists and normal residential traffic due to the blind rise on the Rockview stretch of the road, two ‘turns’ in the road, general traffic overload and an increase in the volume of heavy-duty business vehicles now using the road as more and more residential properties on the eastern side of the road convert to business premises.
“I feel that it is high-time something definite gets done about this dangerous section of road,” said Brett. “It is just not acceptable and completely insufficient to leave matters as they now stand. To do so will be irresponsible as well as an injustice to any future animal or human life that is lost on this road.
A start to this exercise would be to initiate immediate short-term traffic control, calming and punitive disciplinary measures, with future plans to traffic flow and road design set in immediate motion so as to effectively make this stretch of road much safer in the near future. This also applies equally to other dangerous sections of Kingsway and other ‘over-used’ roads in the area.”
