Cape Town - New signage in the city centre will mean there is less chance of finding yourself at the wrong end of a long and busy street and having to make a U-turn.
The City of Cape Town said on Monday it had spent more than R300 000 on upgrades for central Cape Town streets, including new street numbering, and parking bays for motorbikes and the disabled.
According to the city, it would be the first in South Africa to feature this international practice of including building numbers on the same signs as street names.
The project was a joint initiative between the city and the Central City Improvement District (CCID).
“The CCID invested in the preliminary research and reports required, which entailed walking each and every street in the CBD and identifying the direction of the street numbers, particularly as they pertained to every intersection,” said the mayoral committee member for transport, Brett Herron.
Tasso Evangelinos, the CCID’s chief operations officer, said the changes would enable visitors to the CBD to find their destinations easily.
“Motorists will be able to decide which way to turn into a street to find their destination. “This will save them time and fuel as they will no longer need to reroute or backtrack to the correct street.” Some streets - including Bree, Loop and Long - already had signs with sequenced numbering.
“There are more than 200 intersections in the city centre and many of the most prominent ones will be numbered by the time the project is completed next year,” Evangelinos said.
“We encourage building owners to prominently display their building numbers, as this will help to ensure that the street numbering system is even more effective for users of the CBD.”
Other upgrades included increasing the number of parking bays for motorcycles from 39 to more than 130.
Herron said: “World-class cities realise that people are becoming more conscious of their carbon footprint.
“More people are car-pooling, using the bus or opting for more fuel-efficient modes of transport such as motorcycles. We are now in a better position to cater for this need.”
Thirty-five new parking bays for the disabled had been created near such facilities as museums, libraries, hospitals and medical practices.
Cape Times