Streetview South Africa

Going on holiday? Just returned with pictures or news? Found an interesting website? Post everything international in here.

Moderator: Site Management Team

User avatar
Chris5156
Deputy Treasurer
Posts: 16908
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2001 21:50
Location: Hampshire
Contact:

Re: Streetview South Africa

Post by Chris5156 »

booshank wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 23:56 Streetview also answers a question I was thinking of: how would they upgrade the S4 rural main roads that are quite common in South Africa? It seems the solution is simple, turn the original road into a three lane carriageway and build a new two lane carriageway alongside.

Before

After
That's a road with some serious futureproofing! The original intention seems to be that the S4 would ultimately be one carriageway of a dual 3 setup with hard shoulders, but if the new carriageway is only D2, the upgrade surely wasn't about capacity. Was it a safety upgrade?
booshank
Member
Posts: 611
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2011 19:05

Re: Streetview South Africa

Post by booshank »

Chris5156 wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 09:01
booshank wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 23:56 Streetview also answers a question I was thinking of: how would they upgrade the S4 rural main roads that are quite common in South Africa? It seems the solution is simple, turn the original road into a three lane carriageway and build a new two lane carriageway alongside.

Before

After
That's a road with some serious futureproofing! The original intention seems to be that the S4 would ultimately be one carriageway of a dual 3 setup with hard shoulders, but if the new carriageway is only D2, the upgrade surely wasn't about capacity. Was it a safety upgrade?
I somehow doubt the original intention was D3, as that would be pretty unusual for a rural (rather than suburban or urban) road in South Africa - traffic volumes simply don't require it. So I'm thinking it was originally built/planned to be S2 with wide shoulders or S2+1 which could be turned into one carriageway of a D2. But for some reason they scrimped on an upgrade and built S4, despite or before SANRAL's findings that S4 has few savings compared with D2 and a lot of disadvantages.
User avatar
Vierwielen
Member
Posts: 5674
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2008 21:21
Location: Hampshire

Re: Streetview South Africa

Post by Vierwielen »

Chris5156 wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 09:01
booshank wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 23:56 Streetview also answers a question I was thinking of: how would they upgrade the S4 rural main roads that are quite common in South Africa? It seems the solution is simple, turn the original road into a three lane carriageway and build a new two lane carriageway alongside.

Before

After
That's a road with some serious futureproofing! The original intention seems to be that the S4 would ultimately be one carriageway of a dual 3 setup with hard shoulders, but if the new carriageway is only D2, the upgrade surely wasn't about capacity. Was it a safety upgrade?
We really need to go back to when the road was first built. From what I recall, the road was probalby originally built during the Apartheid era as a S2 with very wide shoulders (to take donkey carts, cyclists, pedestrians etc). The norm would be that if somebody wished to overtake you, you would move onto the hard shoulder and allow them to do so. My guess is that the cost of building an S2 with a wide hard shoulder was much less than the cost of building an S4. If there was an insurrection, then the army could comandeer the hard shoulder for the period of the insurrection. As traffic increased, the hard shoulder was rebuilt as a proper road. It was then decided to convert the S4 into a D2 and restore the hard shoulder to the donkey carts etc. The new bridges were built first. What you saw was a newly built bridge. Once the bridges were in place, the new road was built.
wallmeerkat
Member
Posts: 1264
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 16:49
Location: County Down

Re: Streetview South Africa

Post by wallmeerkat »

booshank wrote: Sat Aug 10, 2013 19:27
A303Paul wrote:This junction really ought to be twinned with Glasgow

http://goo.gl/maps/ZgHBH
Do you mean this one?

I think the Cape Town one was built on a more ambitious scale but I'm guessing the same era (construction was halted in the mid-70s). It's more apparent at the stumps at the other end for the unbuilt mainline, note the massive carriageway separation used as a carpark.

Personally I think the brutalist structures go very well with the dramatic natural setting, but others disagree! South African freeway designs seem to achieve a special degree of brutalism that you rarely see here - I think maybe it's the concrete parapets rather than the typical British steel railings.
There was a section in an episode of Abandoned Engineering about this.

It seems that they'll never be completed as intended.
Post Reply