Cape Town is revamping a super busy 2.2 km road called Turfhall, the first big change since 1973! They’re adding more lanes, special paths for bikes, and safer spots for people to walk and cross. This huge project will make travel smoother and safer for everyone by 2045, turning a crowded street into a modern pathway for the city’s future.
Cape Town’s draft plan for Turfhall Road, the first full redesign since 1973, promises significant upgrades by 2045. It includes twin traffic streams, protected two-wheel lanes, pedestrian signals every 250m, a formal public-transport bay, and rebuilt junctions to reduce conflict points.
Turfhall Road is more than asphalt. At dawn, sneakers slap cracked concrete as uniformed children march toward Turfhall Primary. By noon, entrepreneurs in hi-vis vegs push wire carts stacked with tomatoes and butternut, weaving between dented minibus taxis. Dusk brings the 17:00 ballet at Surran junction – brakes squeal, conductors whistle, engines growl. Long after the city sleeps, refrigerated rigs rumble south to Philippi Market, their headlights carving pale tunnels through the dark.
Drawn in 1973 for 7 500 cars a day, the 9 m ribbon now wrestles with 22 400. March 2025 counters clocked 38 % taxis, 9 % heavy trucks, 2 900 pedestrians an hour outside the primary school. Southbound crawl has withered to 18 km/h; morning bus trips along the M32 take 44 % longer than they did in 2018. Three formal crossings exist along the entire 2.2 km; gravel shoulders appear and vanish like unreliable memories.
Cape Town’s Transport and Urban Development Directorate says enough. A November 12 draft plan – first full redesign since apartheid-era linen drawings – promises twin streams of traffic, protected two-wheel lanes, a pedestrian signal every 250 m, a formal public-transport bay beside Turfhall Park, and two rebuilt junctions that slash conflict points by almost half. The drawing board looks ahead to 2045: 32 000 vehicles, 5 000 walkers in the busiest hour.
The window for shaping that future narrows to 15 December. Below, the story is split into four slices – each with room for residents, commuters and business owners to leave fingerprints before the ink dries.
Engineers want to fatten the carriageway to 24 m: two 3.5 m general lanes plus a 3 m bus-only shoulder each way, divided by a 1.5 m mountable median. To do this they need 1.8 m on the east verge and 3.2 m on the west – 68 properties touched, none lose more than 5 m, so full expropriation is avoided. Forty-one homes, 23 shops, three churches and the Athlone Dutch Reformed plot will hand over easements.
A 1.2 m concrete sewer laid in 1961 sleeps beneath the western sidewalk. Robotic cameras found 19 displaced joints and a 300 mm crack outside Montana flats. Replacing the pipe would torch R38 million, so designers are shifting the last 700 mm of storm-water filtration eastward – an R11.4 million detour that keeps the old main in service.
Drainage, property law and memory converge: every extra metre of road must be paid for with negotiations over flower beds, boundary walls and parking bays that never appeared on 1973 linen. Home-owners who give up 1.8 m of front garden will receive new retaining walls and palisade fencing; traders who surrender sidewalk display space are promised 2 m kiosk bays at every new traffic light.
Between Jan Smuts Drive and Orion Road lies 1.1 km of pure friction: three schools, a sports complex, and 2 900 children an hour. The plan carves a 4 m pink-and-grey concrete ribbon – 2 m for feet, 2 m for wheels. Copenhagen-style signal controllers will give cyclists a four-second “pre-green” so they enter the crossing before engines roar. LED studs will wink amber when a walker presses the beg-button, a trick borrowed from London’s TLRN.
The cycleway is Cape Town’s first to thread behind a “floating” bus stop. Bays indent 60 m beside Turfhall Park; passengers step off the platform, cyclists roll behind the shelter, nobody fights for the same square metre. A 1.2 kW solar roof will feed real-time boards listing headways for M32, M40 and the informal “chicken” route to Wynberg.
If Treasury ever signs off MyCiTi Phase 2C, the bay’s concrete shell can be punched out and a full station dropped in – no future jackhammers, no fresh millions. Meanwhile, school principals want the lights to blink automatically at 13:30 and 14:15 so children flow without hunting for buttons. The software can do it; the question is whether adults will agree to surrender manual control.
Police files count 37 pedestrian injuries, six serious, between Surran and David Roads in five years. Seventy percent happened in daylight; more than half within a 50 m lunge of an existing crossing. The remedy is rhythmic: a new signal every 250 m, four fresh ones in total. Each island is 2.5 m wide, wrapped in tactile red pavers and ramped 5 % to force cars to crawl at 30 km/h.
At Turfhall Primary, 38 % of pupils dash against traffic when the bell rings. A “walk-with-traffic” phase is on the table – pedestrians move while cars turn left, cutting average pedestrian delay 22 % and costing drivers only four seconds each.
The ambitious roundabout at Surran keeps a 32 m diameter – tiny by suburban standards – to deny taxis space for straight-lining. Splitter islands will glow in high-friction red paint; a 4 m pedestrian/cyclist ring circles the hub, set back 1.5 m from circulating traffic so eyes meet before tyres turn.
David Road loses its right turns. A 70 m raised median will shove heavy trucks 400 m north to the new roundabout. Freight firms complain of extra kilometres, but simulations show a 65 % cut in crash angles and 40 % fewer injury nights per year. Their counter-offer – a 40 m right-turn pocket – would claw back 8 % of lost time but re-import 46 % of the danger. The City said no.
Dividing 2.2 km into four 550 m slices lets crews keep one 3.5 m lane alive day and night. Portable signals will cycle 90 seconds maximum, queues capped at 130 m – well inside the 180 m storage pocket. Night owls will see water-main relocations between 22:00 and 05:00; Athlone reservoir can keep pressure only above 2 bar. From Q2 2026 to Q3 2028, 28 months of jackhammers and concrete pour.
The bill rings in at R487 million (Q3 2025 rates). Roadworks and drainage swallow R298 m, servitudes R41 m, utilities R67 m, BRT shell and cycling R47 m, design and contingency R34 m. Sixty cents of every rand come from the Urban Settlements Development Grant; the rest from Treasury’s Neighbourhood Development Partnership. Thirty percent of wages must go to local labour – R62 million carved out for kerb stones, indigenous gardens and red cycle surfacing, enough for 520 full-time pay packets.
No full Environmental Impact Assessment is required, but a Basic Assessment Report (October 2025) logged no indigenous vegetation, no critical biodiversity, only a 1953 War Memorial that gains a 6 m buffer. Air-quality modelling predicts a 4 % drop in PM10 because smoother flow ends stop-start idling. Noise creeps 1 dB(A) upward; a 1.2 m absorptive barrier will double as public-art canvas.
Isandla Institute’s Social Impact Assessment flags 112 households at risk of gentrification once accessibility spikes. The City has pencilled them in for its inclusionary-housing pilot on the old Athlone power-station ground, 1.8 km away – rent-capped units scheduled before values sprint.
The Have-Your-Say portal still hums. Drop a 30-second WhatsApp voice note or a 40-page technical PDF; the 3-D model recalculates cost and delay in real time. On 6 December, Open Streets Cape Town will roller-paint the future: biodegradable lanes from Rylands Library to Turfhall Park, followed by a town-square debate on how curb space can morph into netball courts after sunset. Children are already planting LEGO figures on a 1:200 floor map at Athlone library – each brick a data point for the final safety audit.
Bogotá’s property market surged 17 % within 500 m of new cycle lanes where rent control arrived too late. Bishop Lavis’s 2015 upgrade cut delays 28 % but sprouted illegal church forecourts that now block sight-lines. Turfhall Road can repeat those tales or rewrite the ending, depending on who speaks before the countdown hits zero.
Cape Town is undertaking a major revamp of Turfhall Road, a 2.2 km stretch, marking its first full redesign since 1973. The project aims to significantly upgrade the road infrastructure to improve mobility, safety, and efficiency for all users.
The draft plan includes a variety of upgrades such as adding more lanes (twin traffic streams), creating protected two-wheel lanes for cyclists, installing pedestrian signals every 250 meters for safer crossings, establishing a formal public-transport bay, and rebuilding junctions to reduce conflict points. The carriageway will be widened to 24 meters, including dedicated bus-only shoulders.
The project is envisioned to make travel smoother and safer by 2045. Construction is scheduled from Q2 2026 to Q3 2028, spanning 28 months of work. The design looks ahead to accommodate 32,000 vehicles and 5,000 pedestrians in the busiest hour by 2045.
The project requires widening the carriageway, affecting 68 properties which will hand over easements rather than face full expropriation. Homeowners giving up front garden space will receive new retaining walls and palisade fencing, while traders losing sidewalk display space are promised 2-meter kiosk bays at new traffic lights. There’s also a plan for inclusionary housing units for potentially gentrified households.
Significant safety measures are included, such as a 4-meter concrete ribbon for pedestrians and cyclists (2m for each), Copenhagen-style signal controllers giving cyclists a four-second “pre-green” head-start, and LED studs for pedestrian crossings. New signals will be installed every 250 meters, and traffic calming measures like raised islands will force cars to slow down to 30 km/h at crossings. A “walk-with-traffic” phase is also being considered for pedestrian signals.
The total estimated cost for the Turfhall Road revamp is R487 million (at Q3 2025 rates). Funding will come primarily from the Urban Settlements Development Grant (60%), with the remainder from Treasury’s Neighbourhood Development Partnership. A significant portion of the budget, R62 million, is earmarked for local labor, supporting 520 full-time pay packets.
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