Freight bypasses or freight
relief routes could be a
more realistic solution to
addressing road safety and
congestion than banning
trucks off the road,
according to transport
economist, Andrew Marsay.
“If freight is banned from
the roads during peaks, the
costs may well be greater
than any benefits,” he
told FTW. “While truck
accidents can be dramatic,
and slow, under-maintained
vehicles cause chaos, in
aggregate statistical terms
I don’t think freight is
the major contributor to
accidents in metropolitan
areas.”
He said government’s
announcement of a new
highway for Gauteng – the
PWV15 – was the beginning
of a solution.
“Government has to be
explicit about finding and
developing road freight
relief routes across the
province,” he said.
Commenting on current
under-investment in road
infrastructure, he said
with close to zero economic
growth it would be virtually
impossible to fund without
recourse to some kind of user
pays scheme.
Marsay argues that tolling
within metropolitan areas
should be re-examined, but
within a package of measures
that commits
to greater
investment in
modern rail
and other road
infrastructure.
“ Of the
province’s
R6.8bn
transport
allocation,
R1.9bn is
allocated to
transport
infrastructure
– including
maintenance
and other projects as well as
the PWV15. This will not go
far. Maybe a hybrid funding
scheme could be developed
– but with the wider,
integrated transport agenda
as the context,” he said.
According to Marsay part
of the problem has been
an unwillingness to take
existing transport policies
seriously.
“The National Land
Transport Act says that
transport infrastructure
should be procured in ways
that ensure prioritisation
of public transport modes.
If the Department of
Transport
and Sanral
had taken
their stand
firmly on
this Act
throughout
the e-toll
saga,
we may
not have
got into
the mess
we did.
Instead,
it played
out as a
battle of funding options
for Sanral alone – and
misinformation about
Sanral eventually made it
impossible to convince the
public that anything good
could be said about tolls.”
He said to address this
impasse there was a need
for a very broad-based
approach to consensus
building in Gauteng around
transport investment
priorities – such that
public institutions and
‘civic society’ would be
able to engage with
the available
options and
funding
solutions
and come
to a
consensus
view on
a way
forward.
“If it
still means
‘no tolling’
then we will
know that the
implications
are self
elected.
One outcome could be a
choice between new roads
or new public transport
infrastructure. But, unless
economic growth gets back
to 4% for the country
as a whole and 6% for
Gauteng, there is no
chance at all of the
PWV15 starting any
time soon.”
INSERT & CAPTION
Government’s
announcement of
a new highway for
Gauteng — the PWV15
— is the beginning of
a solution.
– Andrew Marsay
