Dries de Klerk from Bashewa:
I refer to your article in The Bronberger of July 2023 regarding the progress of services at the Mooikloof Mega City with 50 000 sectional title units. Traffic-wise, the current “upgrading” of Garstfontein Road by Gauteng Government is a serious disaster in the waiting.

From the Mega City entrance under construction to Philadelphia Road at Woodlands Boulevard is in the order of 8 km. The 50 000 units, each only with a single car, equates to 50 000 cars on Garstfontein Road. Assuming an average car length of 3 m, only 2 666 cars can fit bumper to bumper on this stretch of road at the same time. This excludes the north/south traffic joining Garstfontein Road from Jollify Main Road and or Matt Street.

Regarding road upgrades to accommodate the estimated increase of traffic: Starting at Philadelphia Road at Woodlands Boulevard, direction east, the slipway is being lengthened. Yet about 200 m from the traffic light at Matt Street, construction ends. Thus two lanes become one and a couple of meter on before the traffic light it becomes a dual lane again. After the traffic light, we are back to single lanes, as it is today. A beautiful bottleneck!

Proceeding to Jollify Main Road, four slipways are being lengthened and widened. Yet after approximately 200 m, we are back to single lanes again. Clearly the current “upgrades” will not address or alleviate any increase of traffic; they are only aimed at getting traffic faster into and out of Woodlands Boulevard and the Mooikloof shopping centre.

A further concern is the handling of rain storm water at and around the Mega City. From about Tier Road, direction west, a trench has been dug adjacent to the south of Garstfontein Road. From the Mega City entrance, all vegetation adjacent to Garstfontein Road has been removed – providing a splendid water highway! All of this will undoubtedly flood Garstfontein Road in the ditch, let alone be diverted into the adjacent Mooikloof Glen estate.

At the time of writing this, all construction has seemingly grinded to a halt. At the Mega City entrance, I have noticed all previously installed curbing has been removed! Why? Somebody miscalculated the level of the road being constructed. It is much lower than the current road in use.

Are we as residents and users of Garstfontein Road going to wait until this disaster has realized or take preventative action beforehand?

Letter shortened. – Ed