This is according to DA Gauteng provincial legislature spokesperson on Roads, Graham Gersbach, in response to Makhura’s State of the Province address on Friday, June 27.
Gersbach warns, however, that it is no good if roads are tarred but not maintained.
“I look forward to the day when we will not know the difference between the best maintained suburban road and the worst maintained township road. Let us all commit ourselves to realising this dream.”
Gersbach says that many roads in our metro’s and towns are affected by excessive stormwater run-off due to poor planning.
“I would also like to see a commitment to more effective stormwater management throughout the province.”
He also welcomed the setting up of a panel to review the impact of E-tolls in the province.
“Not one person in this house can dispute that there was a need to upgrade our existing road infrastructure and there still is a need for further upgrades. We will be making our submission when the panel is established.”
The following is a summary of an extract from the DA’s Transport Policy, which informs the points raised by Gersbach:
Road infrastructure
The DA will aim to develop and implement efficient, safe and co-ordinated systems to allow for the cost-effective movement of people and goods by road. This must be done by:
* Protecting the expensive capital investment in the road system by systematically following a planned maintenance programme supported by a dedicated road fund.
* Ensuring the smooth flow of traffic by improving the road environment by signage and the use of intelligent management systems.
* Reviewing the use of toll roads and introducing new concessions compelling them to pay a percentage of their revenue towards community upliftment and transport subsidies.
* Ensuring an effective road safety environment through education, traffic policing and enforcement with a view to (at least) match the 30 per cent reduction in road crash fatalities achieved under DA government in the Western Cape (2009/13) in all provinces.
Infrastructure
Although South Africa has an extensive road network, totalling 607 000 km, maintenance backlogs are growing and the transport infrastructure is becoming increasingly dilapidated.
In 2012 the CSIR found that poor road conditions were the single largest concern of the South Africa freight transport sector, ahead even of the fuel price.
The SA Institute of Civil Engineers (SAICE) found in 2011 that the crisis was particularly acute in the case of the country’s 185 000 kms of provincial roads.
In 2011, the national Department of Transport estimated that the maintenance backlog was R100-billion.
A good road management policy must ensure that roads are regularly assessed and appropriately maintained on a priority-based system.
The DA will implement an urgent national infrastructure programme to upgrade and maintain provincial roads.
Eliminating the road maintenance backlog will require a new look at existing sources of funding and an exploration of other potential sources.
Road maintenance fund
The decline in the quality of our roads was precipitated by the replacement of a dedicated fuel levy.
Since 1998, roads are funded through an annual grant from national government for national roads, and in the form of the equitable share for provincial governments (to be used at the discretion of provinces).
A dedicated Fund for Road Maintenance will help to ensure a regular supply of financing to gradually eliminate the approximately R149-bn maintenance backlog nationally and provincially.
This fund will be the prime responsibility of a special Department of Roads and Safety within the Ministry to deal with the backlog and continued maintenance.
In the national 2013/24 budget, revenue from fuel levies is expected to raise R49.25-bn.
In the 2013/14 budget, R25-bn was allocated to Sanral, the nine provinces and municipalities for road maintenance.
This is little more than half the monies raised in the form of fuel levies alone in 2012/13 (R44.3-bn) and is inadequate to address the known road maintenance and improvement backlog of R149-bn.
Toll roads
The DA’s position on tolling can be summarised as follows:
We believe urban tolling to be, by its very nature, inequitable. It has a disproportionate impact on the poor.
Tolling on commuter routes and urban roads should be avoided except in exceptional cases where roads are essentially scenic routes where the geology makes it very costly to operate.
The privatisation of road capacity and infrastructure should be avoided unless it is for new or additional roads – tolls on existing roads amount to the double taxation of motorists.
Where tolling is considered for new roads, it should only be implemented following appropriate consultation with affected stakeholders and careful analysis of its economic impact.
Expensive E-tolling systems, in which the cost of collection negates much of the income potential, should be avoided.
Where “user pay” principles are considered appropriate, we believe it can be operationalised through systems other than tolling, like the fuel levy or licensing fees. – @IschkeBoksburg
