Roads agency advocates user fees to decongest highways

SA’s STRATEGIC road network has fallen short by 20% of the goal targeted ten years ago by the SA National Roads Agency, but roads that have been incorporated meet national standards, Nazir Alli, CEO of the agency, told FTW last week. “When we started the agency in 1998, we were looking at the time at a national road network of 7000 km. Growth has come from the incorporation of the old provincial networks. We now have 16 000 km. 20 000 km was the goal set ten years ago, but it is an ongoing target. Speaking to delegates at last week’s Road Freight Association annual convention, Alli said the current strategy to overcome highway congestion was user fees and lane expansion. Some truck operators complained that road construction crews commandeered one or more lanes of highways as they worked, worsening congestion, and wondered why new highways were not considered instead of 36-lane behemoths proposed by the National Roads Agency. Alli told FTW: “The issue is land. It’s not cheap. You find someone owning worthless swampland, and when he is approached to sell it for road use suddenly he thinks it is valuable. But it is the road that adds the value.”