Roads agency advocates user fees to decongest highways

SA’s STRATEGIC road network has fallen short by
20% of the goal targeted ten years ago by the SA
National Roads Agency, but roads that have been
incorporated meet national standards, Nazir Alli, CEO of the agency, told FTW
last week. “When we started the
agency in 1998, we were looking at the time at a
national road network of 7000 km. Growth
has come from the incorporation of the old
provincial networks. We now have 16 000 km.
20 000 km was the goal set ten years ago, but it is an ongoing target. Speaking to delegates
at last week’s Road Freight Association
annual convention, Alli said the current strategy
to overcome highway congestion was user fees
and lane expansion. Some truck operators complained that road construction
crews commandeered one or more lanes of highways
as they worked, worsening congestion, and wondered why new highways were
not considered instead of 36-lane behemoths
proposed by the National Roads Agency.
Alli told FTW: “The issue is land. It’s not cheap.
You find someone owning worthless swampland, and
when he is approached to sell it for road use suddenly he thinks it is valuable. But
it is the road that adds the value.”