DRIVERS and commuters in the Mount Edgecombe area would have noticed a significant improvement in traffic flow since the upgraded four-lane Flanders Drive M41 Bridge has been opened. Linking Mount Edgecombe to the Cornubia Business Hub and other Cornubia businesses, the new interchange also provides direct access to Cornubia for commuters travelling along the M41.
The new bridge and interchange has effectively doubled the number of lanes crossing the M41 as well as enhancing access and egress to and from it. It has been designed to handle the increased traffic that will be attracted to the greater Cornubia Development and specifically the Cornubia Business Hub.
This is the third bridge giving easy access into Cornubia, the others being the bridge over the N2 motorway which connects Cornubia with the uMhlanga Ridge Town Centre and the bridge over the railway line and MR79 giving access from the R102.
“This key infrastructure development will prove invaluable to the businesses in Cornubia, such as MMI where some 900 jobs have been created,” explained Selemo Sefehle, project manager – Business Hub, uMhlanga Hills, Marshall Dam and Blackburn Village for Tongaat Hulett Developments.
Read also: uMhlanga N2/M41 interchange set for completion in March
Travellers using Flanders Drive should now find improved travel times where the new ramps and traffic signals should improve the traffic flow through the interchange.
Where M41 travellers are used to the significant back up of traffic from the N2 Mount Edgecombe interchange around peak traffic times, once the adjacent upgrade of the N2/Mount Edgecombe Interchange is completed, the traffic congestion on the M41 will be eliminated with the free flow of traffic through it.
This R280 million project which began in 2015, was co-funded by the eThekwini Municipality and Tongaat Hulett .
“The bridge has been designed to last a century and the interchange is designed as one of the main access points into the greater Cornubia Development and has the capacity to provide for the fully developed business hub and surrounding precincts. Some of the internal roads have been planned for further widening to provide further access through the precincts as the greater Cornubia development expands,” he said.
Read also: Work to begin on R300m promenade extension
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