For anybody looking for plans and renderings of Francistown’s new Spaghetti Road – currently under construction and causing all manner of traffic chaos.
Some points to note:
- Apparently no provision for pedestrian and cycle traffic from the residential zone of “The Blocks” on the other side of the river.
- No route for traffic coming from the hospital to get into the CBD – presumably they will have to go to Area A and through to St Patrick Street, or rat-run through residential Minestone past Town Lodge.
- The “up” lanes passing Thapama and “down” lanes behind Spur are going to make for an interesting one-way system around Ntshe House.
- There was one announcement (I think from a Member of Parliament, so take with a pinch of salt) that large trucks would not be allowed on Spaghetti, this is a problem because there is then no through route for the large volumes of heavy vehicles transiting from South Africa to Zambia and points north (some examples of which can be found here). Presumably the heavy traffic traffic to Dumela and Ramokgwebana/Plumtree/Zimbabwe will have to go through the Blocks, past Marang and through Area A – all busy residential areas.
- Somebody else has observed that there is no provision for “bus lanes” (although public transport drivers usually make their own arrangements in this regard).
Any other observations, comments and updates would be very welcome.
3D rendering from Botswana Daily News
Photo of plans from Twitter user @hennymaps.
https://twitter.com/hennymaps/status/581415907995574272
No bus lanes? Disappointing!
Since when did Botswana’s public transport need special lanes? That’s what shoulders, verges, pavements and the opposite carriageway are for.
2 major mess ups. Coming from hospital to town and coming from blocks to hospital. Who planned this….seems to be incompetent!!!