Cycling and pedestrian lanes to the cost of R100 million are planned for the length of Spine Road and parts of Baden Powell and Strandfontein roads.
Public participation has opened on the project and residents have until next month to comment on the plan.
The City’s project manager George Links said crime is driving up the price of construction which is one of the reasons the project is so costly.
“Construction costs are going up and one thing that is also pushing it up is security. If we look at this project, the actual work is probably going to cost R60 million. The other R40 million is what we call prelim and general costs. We will also have to have onsite security to protect stock, staff and against extortion, and construction companies, when they work in township areas, raise their prices because there’s a higher risk.”
Links said another expensive aspect of the project is the cost of tar. “The surfacing is expensive, because of the oil price,” Links said. “Construction is quite expensive. You’d be surprised how expensive premix concrete is, as well as the amount of labour.”
He explained that traffic accommodation alone would be expensive.
“Just traffic accommodation on this section is R10 million because it’s time-related, so you need to employ flagmen for three years and if you add up all those figures, it comes out to a lot,” Links said.
Traffic disruptions
Despite the high cost of traffic accommodation, Links said the traffic disruptions should be minimal since most of the work will take place on the side walks.
“It’s only when we have to drop off materials that we will most probably have to close the road,” he said.
The stretches of road that will be under construction total 12km, but since the widening and surfacing will be on both sides of the road the total length of construction will be 22km.
Links said there will not be pedestrian and cycling lanes on both sides because certain sections, bordering the reserve, have protected fynbos along the verges and in those places the width is limited.
Construction is projected to begin in the second half of 2027.
“We only got the construction budget for 2027,” Links said.
The project is expected to be completed in 2030.
The City has already hosted two public information sessions last week at the Tafelsig and Olifantshoek community halls. The third and last session will be held at the Rocklands Civic Centre, on Thursday 25 September from 15:00 to 18:00.
The commenting period will close on 17 October. Comments can be submitted online,
at the Public Participation Unit in the Civic Centre, Cape Town, at the Lentegeur Administrative Building or at any of Mitchell’s Plain’s libraries.
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