Cape Town - About R18 million has been set aside by the City of Cape Town as a “special budget” to implement traffic-calming projects at schools and in residential areas across the city.
Yesterday, mayco member for Transport Brett Herron said the money would fund 270 traffic-calming projects.
He said traffic-calming measures referred to speed humps, raised pedestrian crossings, and intersections which would be implemented at schools and along streets in residential areas “where we have a high number of pedestrians or cyclists using or crossing the streets”.
“As a caring city, we believe this money will be well spent to reduce the risks of death or injury of pedestrians.
“The purpose of the 270 projects is first and foremost to protect the most vulnerable road users among us – children, those with special needs, cyclists and other pedestrians.”
Last month five-year-old Madoshe Balonda Muginja was killed in a hit-and-run in Maitland while crossing the road with his friends on their way to a nearby park.
Herron said the budget allocation followed the new Traffic Calming Policy put before the Transport for Cape Town (TCT) committee last week and would be going for final approval at full council.
“Apart from establishing a sustainable and responsive regime for the provision of traffic-calming measures across the city, the policy also addresses the backlog of 500 traffic-calming projects to the value of R30m.”
He said TCT will implement traffic-calming measures at 50 schools each financial year.
Forty-nine projects will be implemented in the central region, from Maitland to Mamre; 66 projects in the east region, from Somerset West to Lentegeur; 67 projects in the north region, in areas such as Brackenfell and Parow; and 67 projects in the south region, which includes Strandfontein, Manenberg and Gugulethu.
Herron said the costs for the projects differed from region to region, depending on the type of calming measure.
Annually, the city received more than 400 requests for the implementation of traffic-calming measures.
Herron said the rapidly increasing number of requests was linked to the deterioration in driver discipline and a general disregard for the rules of the road by all road users.
“We are trying our best to make our roads as safe as possible for all road users, in particular for our children, but we cannot do this on our own.
“We need our residents to play their part by obeying the rules of the road – be it motorists, cyclists or pedestrians.”
Cape Argus
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