The R274-million Bayhead Road upgrade was officially completed on Friday, September 28 – although the construction team remained on site for another two weeks putting the finishing touches to the project. The development resulted in a new, fourlane dual carriageway all the way from Langeberg Road to the Pier 1 entrance. It also included two additional truck staging areas capable of holding 136 trucks – with the Pier 1 staging area due to be open for truckers within the next two months. Added to that were a new tanker washout access road (Gary Frost Road), along with protection culverts around sensitive services (such as fuel pipelines) and the relocation of the pollution control building. The fast facts about the project are: Over 40 000 cubic metres of fill material; over 80 000 sqm of new road layerworks (road base courses) consisting of 1.2-m thick engineered layers; and about 5 000 cubic metres of concrete in protection culverts and the new roadover- rail bridge. The project was awarded a Master Builders Association (MBA) award, and recorded a safety achievement of 1 100 000 lost-time, injuryfree hours during two years of working. It is hoped that this major development of the sole access road to the port’s two container terminals and the oil and bulk terminals at Island View will at long last alleviate the horrible congestion that occurred on the old two-lane road.
