Cape Town - Motorists will breathe a sigh of relief following the reopening of Spine Road between Eerste River and Khayelitsha. The road links three subcouncils and its closure caused heavy traffic during peak hours.
A large portion of the road collapsed in June after the heavy rains. At the time, parts of the City of Cape Town saw as much as 124mm of rainfall during the first 24-hour reporting period and localised flooding was reported across the metro region.
MEC for Infrastructure Tertuis Simmers officially reopened the road on Tuesday afternoon in the presence of municipal and provincial officials.
“It was between 20 and 30 metres (of the road that) was washed away. A lot of commuters use this road to access the Blackheath industrial, and schoolchildren when going to school.”
He said that just over R2 million was spent on repairing the road and all the work was completed in record time. Simmers said the road will cope if heavy rains visit the Mother City again.
“We have introduced new technologies to ensure that in future should there be that level of rains that (road being washed away) will not happen again. Again you will see on both sides of the road, there is slight adjustment to ensure that it does not happen again.”
The road had reopened in August, but the official reopening was held on Tuesday.
ANC councillor Xolani Sotashe was also part of the official opening. He said the reopening of the road will make life easier for users. “Hopefully, the quality of the road is okay. I am not an engineer, we do not want to see what happened in Kuyasa bridge happening here, but I do put my faith in officials that were involved.”
Motorists also said they were impressed with the repairs and hoped that the road will not collapse again.