William Nicol’s R 300million upgrade
Upgrade of William Nicol Drive irks drivers.
Steyn City Properties have contributed R 300 million toward the upgrade of William Nicol Drive at the Mulbarton Drive and Uranium Road intersection.
The intersection has become nightmare for road users since last year, when construction started there. This led to bottle-necking traffic, scattered building rubble and unruly taxis adding to frustrations, but a new timeline has been released for the completion of the intersection.
The Gauteng Department of Transport and Public Works (Gautrans) gave the following estimates of when upgrades will be completed:
- Uranium Road – end of March
- Mulbarton Road – end of May
- The Southbound lanes on William Nicol Drive – September
- The Northbound lanes on William Nicol Drive – November
Although Steyn City Properties is not responsible for the upgrade itself, the developers have provided their contribution to fast track the infrastructure project to improve traffic accessibility and flow to the rapidly developing urban area.
Giuseppe Plumari of Steyn City Properties said, “It is unfortunate that the past few days of heavy rain has not helped the situation and naturally caused additional damage to this particular section of road works. Steyn City Properties empathises with commuters along this stretch of William Nicol and has taken it upon ourselves to restore the damaged section of road at the intersection as soon as possible.”
But, Gautrans gave a long list of problems faced at the site.
In a statement, the department said traffic pointsmen on duty during the day are being attacked or threatened by taxi drivers if they are stopped or if they attempt to regulate traffic.
The volume of traffic through the intersection also varied considerably daily, making it difficult to anticipate what is required in terms of temporary deviations.
The latest rain around the province led contractors to stop work on culverts along the intersection, and parts of temporary road deviations were washed away.
The completion of the main services culvert, south of the intersection, has been affected by last-minute changes to designs required by the services’ owners, while level differences between the existing roadway and the proposed final roadway is making the implementation of temporary road deviations problematic.
In the end, when the project is completed this stretch of William Nicol Drive will be a six-lane dual carriage way, ensuring better traffic flow.
