22 Jun 2022

 Gaborone’s three major grade-separated junctions that are currently under construction, will all be complete latest by September.

Completions of the flyovers all of which along  KT Motsete Road(Western-by-pass), at what were previously known as BTV, Rainbow and Game City circles, will greatly ease congestion in the city.

Project manager for Botswana Integrated Transport Project (BITP), Mr Mmoloki Baele said in an interview yesterday the three flyovers were at different, but close, completion stages.

“Completion is estimated to be at 89 per cent and work is ongoing on the approach roads and under the bridges to build roads that pass under,” he said.

Rainbow and Game City grade separations were expected to be complete before the end of August, and that at old BTV circle in September, due to construction to delays.

They included discovery of a rock under the bridge, which required more work than had been anticipated, he said.

 “Other delays were due to optic fibre cables, power cables and water pipes discovered during construction, and which relevant service providers were not aware of. “Although all the construction sites experienced the same problem, the BTV site had more of those,” he said.

Mr Baele added work was ongoing to build parapets in all the flyovers. He said while the junctions would greatly reduce traffic along approach roads, there would be need for future road planning and developments to take into consideration further traffic increase, to ensure their optimal operation.

He said the flyovers were part of Greater Gaborone multi-modal transport programme, which included the ongoing installation of a new centralised traffic centre control and traffic signalling systems as well as improvement of intersections.

Said Mr Baele: “The centralised control centre is being equipped and linked to the new traffic lights. There are over 100 junctions that have been linked.” Other things being equal, the projects were expected to be fully operational before the end of September, he said. ENDS