The upgrading of roads in the Clermont/Kwadabeka area, Durban

Abstract

Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. The Reconstruction and Development Programme [RDP] started by the South African Government some ten years ago has as its main ambition the provision of civil engineering infrastructure to communities that severely lacked and still lack these essential services. As such, a major component of this programme is to provide the essential road network to the previously disadvantaged communities. However, this delivery programme has been somewhat set back with various problems and the provision of black top roads to appropriate standards in the Clermont and Kwadabeka area has in many cases proven to be a short term solution. Many roads in this area have been upgraded from existing gravel to sealed blacktop standard roads rather hurriedly. In many cases, the critical design elements have been overlooked and the obvious results are roads with premature failure. Unfortunately a fair amount of roads in this area have not even lasted up to half of their expected design life. The existing design procedure adopted by the role players, or lack thereof, has in many cases resulted in the failure of a number of roads in the area under investigation. Various factors linked to the immediate road conditions ensure that a standard road design cannot be applied as a norm. Therefore, when designing to upgrade an existing gravel road, a thorough investigation of all local factors should be carried out. This paper aims to investigate the current status and condition of the road network in the area and also do an investigative analysis of road layerworks that have failed. Alternative designs and proper maintenance plans will also be suggested for the area under investigation and other areas with similar constraints.