LOUIS TRICHARDT – Waiting in long queues will be part and parcel of travelling on the N1 between Louis Trichardt and Musina for many months to come.

The road construction companies are allowed to have two closures of four kilometres of one-way traffic at a given time. A four-kilometre closure has to be followed by a four-kilometre two-way traffic sector before the second closure may be created.

This week, there was one four-kilometre day/night closure approximately half way between Louis Trichardt and Musina. At night robots are used to regulate the traffic while a stop or go board is used during daytime. Vehicles waited in long queues for their turn to use the one-way closure.

Construction work to the section of the N1 twenty kilometres north of Louis Trichardt (near Masekwaspoort) up to seventy kilometres north (twenty kilometres south of Musina) is allocated to Hillary Construction. The construction of the road south of Masekwaspoort was the responsibility of King Civil.

Mr Rob Hillary this week said that the expected completion date of their part of the road is no longer December this year, but March next year. Hillary explained that the extension of the completion date was due to extra work that had been added to the original tender. When asked why there could not be service roads while the N1 was under construction, Mr Hillary answered that there were no diversions because there was no money budgeted for these.

The existing road is being widened on each side. Mr Hillary said that the existing road surface was recycled by milling it up and adding cement and emulsion, which is tar, to it. The road will be completed by a new asphalt surface. On completion, a tollgate is to be erected near Bokmakierrie by the National Road Agency (NRA).

A businessman from Louis Trichardt who is in the Speed Courier industry said that his vehicles have to leave for Musina an hour earlier to compensate for the half an hour delay both ways. He said that the flow of the traffic was getting more difficult because a bigger area of the road was coming under construction. Another frustrated road user complained that motorists, who are financially overburdened by the maintenance of their vehicles, also have to face this week's petrol price rise of 12 cent per litre.

"The prospect of yet another tollgate, is just pushing us beyond our limit."