July target for Swazi road rehabilitation

MBABANE – Swaziland will
likely finish the rehabilitation
of one of its most-travelled
highway arteries by July. The
section of the MR3 highway
from Manzini to Matsapha is
heavily utilised by roadfreight
traffic moving from the
country’s transportation
hub city to the main Swazi
industrial estate. The intense
truck traffic had degraded the
route, which was completed
in 1994, to the point that tyre
blow outs were common and
accidents were increasing.
Traffic into and out of
Manzini from the west has
been particularly affected,
with delivery delays resulting.
Additionally, Manzini’s
narrow streets that have been
unchanged in a century are
now perennially gridlocked
in the eastbound directions.
A proliferation of popular
second-hand car dealerships
has resulted in a steady
growth of cheap “Dubai” cars
nationwide. With increased
bus traffic using the town’s
public transport rank in the
city centre, vehicle movement
on the main eastbound artery,
Ngwane Street, rivals the
slowness of Lagos or Cairo. The
irony is not lost to residents
of a town that is minuscule in
size compared
to Africa’s
metropolitan
behemoths.
“It’s not a
population
problem but an
urban planning
problem, and
improving
traffic flow
requires an
urban and
regional
planning
solution,” an
official with the Manzini City
Council told FTW.
A new highway to bypass
Manzini is planned by the
Ministry of Public Works
and Transport that will
connect Matsapha with King
Mswati III International
Airport
60 km east
of Manzini.
The highway
is years
away from
construction,
and like
an existing
bypass road
north of
Manzini, the
new route will
not address
traffic jams
in the central
business district, into which
the rehabilitated MR3
directly feeds.
INSERT
Manzini's narrow
streets that have
been unchanged in
a century are now
perennially gridlocked
in the eastbound
directions.