WATCH: Roadwork rage: Daily queues on R34 irk motorists

The stop-go on the R34 outside Empangeni continues to frustrate motorists, who suffer major queues on their daily commute amid crucial roadworks.

Heatonville resident Shelley Hall this week posted a video of the long lines of traffic heading out of Empangeni.

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“They’re backed up basically from the prison, all the way past the Bargain Shed turn-off to where the stop-go starts. Absolutely horrible!” said Hall.

The stop-go was implemented last Friday, catching motorists by surprise and causing delays of more than an hour.

Impatience led to motorists, fed-up with the gridlock, to push through and create their own lanes, eventually causing four lanes of traffic where there should be two.

Motorists are since waiting for up to 30 minutes at the stop-go, while others take detours to avoid the stretch.

While regular commuters on the R34 acknowledge the necessity of the upgrades, citing monthly haulage of 6 500 tonnes of coal and 150 000 tonnes of sugar cane, motorists have raised concerns about the contractor’s equipment on site.

“They’ve dug up 3.7km of the road and it now appears the contractor doesn’t have the right machinery to continue to work. The guy who got the contract has only one piece of equipment – a TLB,” said DA King Cetshwayo Constituency deputy chairperson, Cllr Christo Botha.

Botha has also taken up the fight of the similarly heavily-utilised R102 between Empangeni and Felixton, having initiated a community petition to take to the KZN transport MEC.

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