29 Jun 2016

“A naare spaghetti se sa lona jaanong ke dinawa, ga se butswe gore se tsholwe,” one woman travelling in a local taxi was heard wondering as to when the new and first ever road interchange in the country will be ready for use.

The interchange, popularly known as ‘spaghetti’ by the Francistown community and beyond, is taking shape bit by bit, although only massive steel works and pillars are still the only visible erections.

Sandwiched between the Cresta Thapama Hotel, Bank of Botswana, Francistown High Court and Metcourt Inn Hotel, the modern design is part of the long awaited P1 billion Tonota-Francistown road expansion project.

Attractive as it may seem, the project has had its fair share of negatives, among them, the traffic jams motorists experience on a daily basis as they drive about in the country’s second largest city.

On the surrounds of the construction sites, traffic moves at a snail pace, with vehicles, including private cars, small trucks, buses, motor cycles, and even bicycles, all obeying traffic police hand signals as the normal traffic lights have either been dismantled or are just overwhelmed.

Although it is a challenging experience, many drivers appear to have become accustomed to this daily routine as they drive to and from  work, or during lunchtime or when rushing to fetch their school children to drop them off home.

Small access roads are being opened up all around this mammoth interchange, leaving many wondering whether alternative routes were not thought of beforehand.

For instance, one of the ever busy roads passing by the High Court and Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital (NRH) to the east has been uprooted to make way for the one that will fit well into the interchange system.

Here the adjacent households in Somerset East are on the receiving end amidst the construction hazards, and what’s more, once completed the new road is going to be too close to some of the gates.

Another area of disquiet is in the form of mall informal hawkers and vendors that used to line up each side of the now undone road; they have had to move and find alternative and unfamiliar spots.

The UB plot next to Nyangabwe Hospital has also suffered a reduction in size as a new access road to reduce traffic congestion has been created, thereby affecting the boundaries of the university on the north east.

The spaghetti junction is surely being felt by almost everyone in the northern city, right from the relocation of a substantial number of households to Gerald Estates at take off in early 2013.

And now, as the buoyant interchange slowly progresses, it will certainly become such a landmark that will no doubt dwarf the hitherto big structures of the High Court, the Bank of Botswana and Cresta Thapama facilities nearby.

Soon, the project will be complete and ready for dishing and many, like the woman in the taxi, will be ready to using the development as a pride of the North, with many expected to visit it to take selfies. Ends