Promise: traffic will flow in Ballito

Contractors and municipal officials have agreed that four lanes of traffic and extra pointsmen will be essential to keeping traffic flowing over the busy holiday season.

The huge outcry over the traffic gridlock at the top of Ballito for the past two weeks – causing delays of up to 45 minutes – caused a flurry of action this week from local councillors, municipal officials and the road contractors.

Louis Luyt, chairman of the Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers’ Association (Docrra) managed to bring all the main players together in a meeting at La Montagne on Monday afternoon to try to solve the problem. Business owners are extremely worried that a traffic gridlock over Christmas will depress sales and drive future visitors away from the town.

“We need a coordinated plan, including pointsmen, to improve traffic flow in December otherwise Ballito will lose people to Tiffany’s and Umhlanga,” Luyt told the meeting. He stressed that holidaymakers were Ballito’s economic lifeline and the traffic problem must therefore be solved as quickly as possible.

Consulting engineer David Duke said the current upgrades were long overdue.

“The road was constructed in 1950, has long outlived its 20 year road design life and therefore had to be rebuilt as opposed to resurfaced,” said Duke.

The old road did not have the necessary pedestrian facilities, place for taxis to drop off and pick up passengers, street lighting and had too many potholes and ruts due to high traffic volumes. He said the original plan was to build a four lane road, but during planning it was realised that Ballito’s growth tempo would necessitate a six lane road very soon.

“The final product will include a layerwork upgrade, an upgrade from two to six lanes, traffic lights, two metre wide sidewalks, a central median for pedestrian safety and turning slots, taxi and bus bays at major intersections and street lighting.”

Duke said the old traffic circles had to be removed as they couldn’t cope with the planned development. The reasons for the project being behind schedule was mainly due to the 10 metre retaining wall alongside The Junction centre taking longer than expected to build and, to a lesser extent, rain and the taxi rank re-location process.

“Our team currently works 6 am to 6 pm and every weekend to have four lanes open by December 12, but we need assistance from the traffic department to improve the flow of traffic,” said Duke.

Ward councillors, engineers and traffic department representatives concluded that the best way to save Ballito from festive season disaster is with the help of coordinated pointsmen in conjunction with an accellerated contract by means of night work.

“We cannot have officers directing traffic all day because we have limited manpower,” said traffic director Johnny Moodley.

Lifestyle centre owner Bruce Rencken made it clear that KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) has to find a solution to suit traffic requirements and not their budget and staff availability. He said the cost of solving the traffic problem would be small compared to the implications for Ballito and businesses now and in future.

“Ballito is jam packed every year and we have an opportunity to make this year better than previous years if we work together,”said Rencken.

Councillor Sandeep Oudhram, chairman of the KDM technical services committee, committed to meeting with the traffic department on Tuesday morning to develop a detailed plan for extra pointsmen. This will be presented to a meeting of Exco on Wednesday. He said the cost implication should be born by KDM and not the ratepayers.