The City of Bulawayo would like to apologise to the residents and stakeholders on the poor state of the roads following the heavy rains which have been received and also due to the fact that most of our roads have outlived their lifespan.
The service life of our roads (flexible pavements) ranges from 15 years for local streets, to 20 years major roads. The determination of design life is a factor of materials used, environmental conditions, and traffic loading (number and type).
As it is 70 % of the total network is in poor condition.
More than 50% of the roads in poor condition require immediate rehabilitation.
The City’s network is estimated at 2 100km and requires $690 million to bring the roads to good or better condition with US$69 million required per year according to our Road Condition Survey.
It is Council’s wish to find the required funding to address the roads challenges and various efforts are being made to acquire the capital funding for the projects.
Some of these include the recent adoption by Council of the “Adopt a Road” scheme for stakeholders. In the Investment Prospectus recently published, road development and rehabilitation is also included.
Industry is invited to propose ideas and partner with Council in improving the condition of the road network.
We have plans to adopt the latest technologies in our activities like thermoplastic paint and milling, funds permitting and we will continue to engage and lobby the government for more funding through ZINARA.
Council’s proposed road work plan for 2017 focuses on preventing further deterioration of roads in a fair condition. Activities that Council will focus on are resealing, slurry and crack sealing. Reconstruction costs are 20 times more that resealing. We note that a stitch in time saves nine. Planned rehabilitation works for 2017:-
Presently, Council has concentrated its maintenance programs on public transport routes, arterial and collector roads, roads leading to institutions and the Central Business District, while bulk of the network especially local streets cannot be attended to due to financial constraints and continue to suffer from unabated condition decline.
At the present moment due to heavy rains all road works programme have been shelved due to the wet ground. The road rehabilitation work will start as soon as the heavy rains subside.
Siye Phambili!
ADVERT NO : 5706
DATE : Wednesday, 8 February 2017
C. DUBE TOWN CLERK
