SA's new congestion capital

04 June 2014 - 02:01 By Caryn Dolley
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

The N1 highway into Cape Town is the most gridlocked route in the most congested city in South Africa.

Navigation company TomTom yesterday released its annual global traffic index report for 2013. It said it had found that Cape Town had overtaken Johannesburg as the most congested city in the country and was the 33rd-most congested in the world.

Cape Town has a 27% congestion level. This means that, at any given time, a Cape Town motorist needs to add 27% to the free-flowing travel time to get a realistic estimated time of arrival.

The figure for Johannesburg is 25%.

Cape Town traffic department spokesman Richard Coleman said the most congested route during peak hour was the N1 into the city centre. Motorists often sit from 6.15am to 9.30am edging their way into town.

The report said that South Africans spend an average of 10 working days a year stuck in traffic.

Lynne Pretorius, director of ITS Engineers, a company specialising in transport planning, said South Africa was still dealing with "apartheid-style town planning", with residents living far from their workplace.

"In the past public transport was [adequate] and car ownership wasn't high."

She said the situation in South Africa was in stark contrast to that other countries.

"The era of the car is over. All major cities across the world have invested heavily in public transport," Pretorius said.

Town planner Martin Scott said widening roads would not solve the problem and "public transport needs to be looked at" such as the MyCiti bus service in Cape Town that connects suburbs to the city centre.

Traffic woes: by the numbers

Capetonians face a delay of 38 minutes for a one-hour trip during peak-hour traffic in the Mother City.

Some of the interesting figures from TomTom's 2013 traffic index report include:

  • 40 hours: The delay you'll clock up over a year in Bloemfontein doing a 30-minute commute daily.
  • 28 minutes: The delay per hour during peak-hour traffic in East London.
  • 27 minutes: The delay per hour during peak-hour traffic in Pretoria.
  • 25%: The percentage of time you should add to your trip when driving in Johannesburg.
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now