Cape Town's roads.

Who plans the maintenance of our roads?

Whoever this person is he needs to go to school some time to learn something about planning.

I took a drive out to Worcester this week and instead of using the Huguenot Tunnel ( which has a toll of R18.00 now for cars to use it ) I decided to drive over the du Toit's Kloof Pass.

About three kilometres into the pass I came across the first Stop/Go sign board where I was required to stop and wait for at least 15 minutes while traffic coming down the pass utilised the one lane of road that was open to traffic.

What was more than amazing was that nowhere was there any signposting to tell one that the road was reduced to one way traffic for most of the length of the pass.

I was stopped four times with a total delay of about 45 minutes to drive the few kilometres over the pass.

Luckily, I had no time restrictions so I enjoyed the views that I was not likely to have seen had I not had to stop.

On my return trip to Cape Town I had planned to drive from Worcester to Villiersdorp on the road that runs along the eastern side of the Hottentots Holland mountain range.

Lo and Behold ! we were stopped again as they were resurfacing this road as well .

No where were there any prior warnings of roadworks.

Once through all the enforced stops we arrived in Villiersdorp believing that it was not possible to find more roadworks.

Boy, was I wrong?

On the Franschhoek pass road we once again encountered a stop/ go delay.

It was quite amazing that two of the subsidiary roads out of Cape Town over the mountains were blocked by roadworks and that a connecting road on the Worcester side of the mountain was also blocked.

Not only are there road works in the mountains but the N1 highway into Cape Town is undergoing a resurfacing as well.

We are glad that the maintenance is taking place but would love to know who plans the traffic controls.

Both sides of the highway are blocked at the same time and road signs are so badly set up that long delays are caused where there should be none.

Finding your way through the maze of misleading traffic signs is quite a nightmare.

It appears that the contractors who are repairing the roads are left to control the traffic as well.

What do they know about traffic control?

Seeing the chaos made me wonder where are our trained traffic officers were.

Sitting in their cars somewhere using speed cameras to trap people I suppose.

Maybe if they sorted out some of the signage we might not have so many accidents on our roads.

Come on traffic authorities!

Get your act together!

**

To find out where I went on my round trip to Worcester read Turtle Essays latest ezine.
Here is the link:

Turtle Essays edition no 126

See you soon.

Geoff Fairman

**

Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour

The cycle tour is an annual event happening on the second Sunday in March.

It has grown from a small event way back in 1978 where about 500 people took part to 35000 entrants this year.

If Cape Town could cope with more riders numbers would be well over 40000 by now.

The organisation of this tour is enormous.

The route covering 108 kilometres stretches across the entire Cape Peninsula with the southern section of the route being quite remote from train and bus travel.

Traffic control is a major problem as the route blocks off all the access roads to the southern peninsula for most of the day.

People living in the Southern Peninsula are forced to stay at home or leave home before 5.00am in the morning.

The start of the race at Hertzog Boulevard is another nightmare to organise.

The race is arranged into blocks of entrants whose previous race times are used to stagger the start.

Each entrant is told in which group he/she will start and has to find his way to his group on arrival at the start.

With 35000 entrants with cycles, the start is congested.

With so many people in a race there are bound to be accidents so medical facilities have to be spread all around the Peninsula to be readily available if an accident occurs.

Accidents are a foregone conclusion as most of the 35000 riders are amateurs and are not used to riding in a crowd.

Any slight swerve will take out the front wheel of the rider behind and will cause a chain event of fallers.

Some serious accidents can happen when riders are moving at speed such as the downhill at Hospital Bend near Groote Schuur Hospital.

Cape Town is hot and windy at this time of the year so supplying refreshments for riders is a necessity.

Volunteers have to be found to man water points and to clean up after a group of riders has been through the point.

The Argus Cycle tour is one of the races in which each and every rider is timed.

It's a mammoth task to keep track of all these thousands of people so the problem has been solved by giving each rider a microchip which is attached to his/her race number and is recorded by a computer when the cyclists ride over mats along the course.

Yesterday (Saturday) when I visited the finish of the race the recording mats had not yet arrived and the electricians were starting to panic that things would not be ready for the race today (Sunday).

Not only do race organisers have to time the race, they also have to prepare the course.

In many areas spectators have to be held back and plastic fencing has to be put in place to do this.

In dangerous areas where there is a likelihood of an accident happening straw bales have to be put in place to soften the fall.

As with motor vehicles, brakes often fail on downhills and then the rider is unable to stop necessitating an emergency stop into a bale of straw.

The finish of the race is even more important than the start.

When riders complete the 108 kilometres many are dead tired and in bad shape.

Medical facilities need to be in place to assist the people in need of attention.

Bicycles are expensive items these days and special care has to be taken of them as well.

A rider in need of medical care is unable to attend to the safety of his bike so it is placed into storage until it can be collected by him.

The finish of any race is always popular with spectators so arrangements to cope with traffic and parking is necessary.

A tent town has been built near the Green Point Stadium for catering and looking after the many thousands of spectators who will come to the finish to fetch their loved ones.

Speaking to an electrician working in the tent town I was told that approximately 10 kilometres of overhead wire had been installed to provide power to all the tents and that on Monday morning all of the wiring would have to be dismantled again.

What a lot of work for just one day of action.

I have written more articles on the history of the race and the routes around the Peninsula which are used.

Read them here.

Turtle Essays ezine no 125

See you all soon!

Geoff Fairman

Making Popcorn

A lonely popped popcorn kernel

**

It's fun making popcorn when things go the way you plan them.

A glassbowl, some oil and some popcorn kernels into a microwave for a few minutes normally results in a lovely bowl of fluffy white popcorn,

We've done it so many times in our household we can do it with our eyes closed.

Of course when you do anything different to the norm expect things to go wrong.

Tonight we used a glassbowl we have never used before and after two minutes in the oven there was a loud crack.

The bowl split in two with popcorn all over the place.

When you are in the mood for popcorn you can either go to the movies and their pay prices or you can make it at home.

Tonight we should have gone to the movies.

A suggestion to use a plastic bowl after the glassbowl split was taken literally.

Oil in the bowl, some kernels, and into the microwave for five minutes.

After two minutes the popcorn started popping , and soon the bowl was full of lovely fresh fluffy popcorn.

That was until the bowl was removed from the microwave.

All that lovely popcorn ended up on the floor.


Here's the reason why!




The remains of the plastic bowl after a session in the microwave

**

Two perfectly good bowls wrecked in 10 minutes and still no popcorn.

Tonight paying the exhorbitant movie prices would have been cheaper.

Next time we'll use ovenware bowls!

Geoff Fairman
ps

Turtle Essays is an ezine about Cape Town and its surrounding areas.

This week we have fresh articles about our Americas Cup Challenger Yacht " Shosoloza" and some lovely pictures of the penguins at the Boulders Beach in Simonstown.

See them in Turtle Essays ezine

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