Funding talks begin on planned Gauteng-Durban truck highway

Details of the first few phases of the dedicated truck highway – eventually planned to link the country’s main production hub of Gauteng/Free State and its major port of Durban – have been released to FTW by Paul Sessions, transport economist in the eThekwini Municipality transport planning department. It’s long-term planning, he noted, with the initial effort being an examination of alternative routes to connect the port (and the new dig-out port) with the N2 highway. “So far,” said Sessions, “we’ve got government funding for the environmental impact study early next year, and we are also going ahead with the planning – working out the route and actual costing of the first phases of the dedicated truck highway.” And it’s going to be a large highway, he added, with three lanes in each direction. The first hard task is to persuade Transnet – the main beneficiaries of an efficient truck highway – to come up with “a good part” of the funding. “But,” said Sessions, “we are also talking to the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the government about their possible involvement.” According to Graham Muller of Muller & Associates, the lead consulting firm that drew up the back-ofport (BOP) plan for the municipality, the project is likely to cost billions of rand. That would have to cover the dedicated truck route west from the port to the N2 highway; then the other truck route from the N2 to join the N3 at Cato Ridge; as well as a road linking the proposed dig-out port at the site of the old international airport to the existing harbour. The suggestions are that the truck route from the port to the N2 may be funded by the city, according to eThekwini deputy city manager Musa Cele, quoted by business intelligence unit, INet Bridge. He agreed with what Sessions told FTW, and said that the BOP project was likely to be funded from a “mixture” of sources that may or may not include a toll road, although funds raised from a toll road were likely be insufficient to fund the entire project. The city, he added, would negotiate with Sanral to pay for at least part of the project, pointing at the road from the N2 to the N3 at Cato Ridge. The municipality will also need to obtain funding from national government if it is to proceed with its BOP project to support expansion around the Port of Durban – where eThekwini must cater for an expected increase in container traffic to 25 million containers a year from 3.6 million at present. It’s all still at the prefeasibility stage. But, Sessions told FTW: “We’re looking at the route being operational by about the end of the decade (2020).”