Major upgrades on its way for N1 highway
The upgrades and road modifications will be made on the N1 between Kranskop toll plaza and Polokwane.
POLOKWANE – The N1 between Kranskop toll plaza and Polokwane is set to undergo a design change, with the hope to reduce head-on collisions.
At the end of last year, the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) appointed engineers to start the design process of splitting the road into two carriageways with a physical barrier in the middle.
“The barrier is to separate traffic and this will improve road safety, and ensure that there will no longer be any head-on collisions on this road,” Sanral northern region operations and maintenance manager Madoda Mthembu told Review.
The project is still in the early stages of design and no completion date has been announced yet.
“Sanral did a thorough road safety assessment of the N1. The recommendations from that study will be incorporated into the current design. One of the recommendations is to split the N1 into two carriageways,” Mthembu explained.
In 2018, Sanral erected barricades in the form of traffic delineators on the N1 north highway until Polokwane, to deter drivers from overtaking over barrier lines.
Earlier on in the same year, a Limpopo resident started a petition to erect barriers on the N1 between Kranskop and Polokwane, following a number of collisions on the stretch of road.
Head-on collisions and reckless overtaking is still a common occurrence on the road as revealed by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula earlier this month. He said the overwhelming majority of fatal crashes during the 2021 festive period were single motor vehicles that overturned and head-on collisions.
In one such incident, on January 12, a head-on collision claimed 17 lives and injured eight others on the N1 near Mookgophong in Limpopo.
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