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How deep are your pockets, Joburg? Tollgates are coming to YOUR freeways

Posted: May 13th, 2010 | By Paul Ash


tolls

You might never ride the Gautrain – but as a Joburg driver, you are going to help pay for it, because toll gates are coming to Joburg.

So even if you don’t dump your car and take the train (or the bus), you will ultimately be helping your fellow citzens pay off all this fantastic new transport infrastructure.

By April next year, a toll gates will have sprung up on the freeway that that circles Johannesburg and links the city to Pretoria. Soon the name of this project – the Open Road Toll system – will be as familiar to you as the words “electric fence” and “World Cup” and “pothole”.

Tolls will be pegged, for starters, at 50c per kilometre. According to project consultants Bradford Mccormack, this will work out at R1020 a month for 20 days’ of commuting by car between Joburg and Pretoria CBDs.

And you can run, but you can’t hide, unless you drive only on the backroads, and you know how difficult that is to do, now that Joburg’s suburbs are effectively fenced-off.

The system works like this: all cars will be fitted with transponders under their licence plates which will allow images of the plate to be captured as the vehicle passes through the toll gate (there are no barriers at these tollgates because the people who are giving us the system don’t want us to queue at toll plazas, not because they worry about our stress levels, but because queues mean traffic jams which is the spin behind the project: ridding Joburg of its traffic congestion).

The aim is to get people out of their cars and onto Gautrain, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and other public transport. The other side of the coins you will be dropping into the government coffers if you decide to suck it up, are that you will be paying for Gautrain and BRT too.

Of course, the unruly taxi associations probably won’t play along.

See the report here.

GRAPHIC: The planned toll system around Joburg – tollgates are in red. SOURCE: Bradford MacCormack

  
 
 

Comments

 

Robert

May 14, 2010 at 9:28 am

Can anyone tell us how much a train ticket is going to cost. to Pretoria or Sandton?

 

Tiresias

May 14, 2010 at 10:31 am

And when the Gautrain workers go on strike? When we have closed the door on alternative use of private transport?

 

Paul Ash

May 14, 2010 at 10:45 am

The figure that keeps coming up is R85, one way, so R170 return. Not a train that is going to bring public transport to the poor.

 

pamela

May 20, 2010 at 4:19 pm

great website.. i love the articles on this website.. pls keep up the updating and great articles..

 

Kaizo

August 18, 2010 at 1:25 am

I flippen hate this country, what does the government think, the people are just rolling in money, we are practically taxed on everything under the damn sun, and they still want more.

 

Mphoza

October 4, 2010 at 9:07 am

who said they should create this Gautrain if they wont be able to pay for if.

 

Chris

November 4, 2010 at 11:45 am

Well that’s fan- f**ken-tastic

Leave it to a bunch of idiots to supply a shiny new train for the upper middle class to play with … Whoopi for them. Funny how there is no real or reliable public transport system for the working middle class whom by the way live in the west, east rand and northern suburbs as far up as Pretoria; all these commuters have to use the N3/N1 and they have two options use back roads and leave 2 hours earlier to avoid being late for work or pay causing more financial strain on an already strained middle class.
I live in West Rand and I work in Sandton, now I’m being punished for trying to get to work on time, there is no real alternative transport to my own transport. If there was a train from Rooderport to Sandton and it was reasonably priced I would use it.. ( 20 rand one way 25 rand one way is fair for a 35 km trip )
But Noooo!! They seem to be trying to turn a public service into a money machine and shove it down our throats

Usually (having a strong work ethic) pointless strikes and service interruption irritate me the but I hope this cause there is a province wide tools down showing back bone of Gauteng putting their foot down ,giving these A –holes the finger thus telling them to f**k themselves and the horse they rode in on !!

 

JOHAN FOURIE

November 18, 2010 at 10:12 am

HOW ON EARTH ARE THEY GOING TO GET THEIR REVENUE FROM A VEHICLE WITH A LICENSE PLATE OTHER THAN GP OR EVEN A FOREIGN CAR

 

CraigT

December 8, 2010 at 12:23 pm

And does anybody know what the payment method will be? Do we have to physically go to some payment department and pay it (which cost extra for petrol as well as bank fees) or will they be debiting our bank account (Which will also cost extra on bank fees)???

 

Giggs

January 12, 2011 at 11:17 am

These morons haven’t even given a thought to the affects this will have: petrol will go up; the food price will double, not to mention the fact that more than more half the people don’t earn an adequate amount of money to cover the toll gates, which means more unemployment and a rise in crime! Who but these greedy goat farmers in government?????? (On a fence to the still goat farmers).

 

Melinda

January 31, 2011 at 1:51 pm

I think we must all strike with the taxi’s and close the highway we pay our taxes, the petrol is so high why do they want to take every cent we earn?

 

Melinda

January 31, 2011 at 2:03 pm

The funny thing is when the construction was in the begining a contruction track lost a stone and it hit my left hand side indicator I emailed sanral in which a women with the name of Wendy siad she will foward it to the responsible person while guess what it’s been a year now still nothing now they expect us to pay for these toll gates but they can not even cover the damages they cause maybe there are alot of people now they need to find a way to make money,, who’s going to control the money for the toll gates?? here comes another fraud case soon.

 

Karen Wolfaardt

February 5, 2011 at 11:05 pm

What if you only travel between Johannesburg and Pretoria once every 2 months or so. What do you pay then?

 

Kaydee

February 8, 2011 at 11:08 am

What can we do to stand against this?
It has not been properly introduced and presented to the public, it’s all word of mouth and rumors so far. And then to tell us they only recieved a small amount of protest.
We need a fair fighting chance to have our say. They cant just inforce poverty on us like this. Is this not a democracy?!?!!!

Who is looking out for the people of South Africa?

Who will aid us in this struggle?!

 

Daryl Demmer

February 15, 2011 at 8:44 pm

So Gauteng is going to be tolled. The N4 between Witbank and Middleburg has been tolled for the last few years, this trip is approx 32 km and the toll is R39 one way if you get a concession it’s R12.50 one way. So a person working in one of the towns and having to use the toll every day will have to pay +- R500 a month. The bridge on the alternative route collapsed but the toll gates were not opened. TRAC is used to fleecing the public.

 

trollbeads

March 9, 2011 at 10:43 am

You changes sound great! Good luck to everyone in the election(s).

 

martin

March 17, 2011 at 4:21 pm

i will personally vandalise the electrical equipment weekly on the booms, rocks and cameras dont mix, il get my cash back in satisfaction.

 

r4ds

June 20, 2011 at 5:18 am

By April next year, toll gates will have sprung up on the freeway that that circles Johannesburg and links the city to Pretoria. Soon the name of this project – the Open Road Toll system – will be as familiar to you as the words “electric fence” and “World Cup” and “pothole”.

 

Kris

July 13, 2011 at 10:47 am

I know my fellow south africans ….they will break it down and I say HELL YEAH
No one will be forced into poverty

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  • About

    Dispatches and reports from the road, with a bit of eccentricity on the side. I am deputy-editor of Sunday Times Travel Weekly.