SUNGULA NKABINDE
RELIEVED motorists sounded their hooters in unison yesterday as they crossed the new Allandale bridge for the first time.
This was after the cutting off of a ribbon on the Midrand road, signifying the completion of the Allandale interchange upgrade on the N1 freeway.
“I am very pleased. I normally spend about half-an-hour whenever I travel on this road. I’m very happy,” said Troy Vezasie, who was waiting on the bridge for the ribbon to be cut.
“Just imagine the kids who are now going to have their dads back home (from work) an hour early every day (as a result of this upgrade),” said Izak van der Linde, applauding the hooting motorists.
Van der Linde had been involved in the land acquisition stage of the project.
The upgrade, which cost R350 million in total, is one of 34 interchange upgrades that are to be done by the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) as part of its Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP).
“With the development of (the Midrand area), and the growth in commuter traffic between Pretoria and Johannesburg, the Allandale interchange became one of the busiest interchanges in Gauteng.
“Today there are almost 200 000 trips that are taking place daily between the Buccleuch and Allandale interchange,” said Alex van Niekerk, Sanral’s project manager for the GFIP.
“In order to accommodate (the traffic flow), it was (therefore) decided that all traffic movements must take place on a free-flow basis, meaning that there should be no stopping through the interchange.
“You will no longer hear a road-traffic report stating that the traffic lights are out at the Allandale interchange, as there are no lights,” Van Niekerk said.
At the launch, Fanus Lund was honoured with an award of excellence for designing the layout of the interchange.
Lund was the chief geometric design engineer for the project.
“I am very happy and proud to receive the award,” said Lund, who took pleasure in the challenge of the project.
“The difficulty was making everything work within the limitations of the services and developments that were already there,” he said.
In conceptualising the complex design of the interchange, he had to accommodate high-mast power cables, water pipelines and telecom cables that already existed.