RESIDENTS OF HARARE ….
Are you also tired of expensive damage to your tyres and suspension, and dangerous driving as motorists swerve to avoid potholes?
You’ve been thinking of “doing something” about repairing your road, but have no idea where to start?
Attend the launch of the RESTORE-A-ROAD campaign on 12 April, and find out how other residents are successfully restoring the roads in their suburb, with City of Harare resources.
SPEAKERS:
- Jacque Anderson (Miracle Missions and Chisipite roads champion)
- Councillor Rusty Markham (Ward 18)
- Sean Quinlan of Road Users Association
INVITED: Senior representatives of City of Harare, the Dept.of Works, and Zinara
VENUE: Northside Community Church, 8 Edinburgh Road, Pomona
WHEN: Thursday, 12th April, 5:30 for 6pm.
Please SHARE this notice to your neighbourhood groups, invite a friend and support a campaign that will restore the neglected roads in OUR suburbs.
RUA seems to be a lot of hot air and not much else. What happened to the challenges to ZRP which should have been actioned long before the roadblocks disappeared? Why do you now want residents to do ZINARA’s job for them, while they purloin the road toll fees? You must be their best friend.
Dear Sean. I will be unable to make this evening meeting but feel very strongly about a couple points which maybe you could bring up if no-one does.
The greatest damage done to a road is from traffic using it when its wet, so road designers will all advise to get water off the road as quickly as possible. One of the biggest failings of road authorities is not attending to this very simple concept which in turn reduces repair costs later on.
A prime example is Sandringham Drive next to Royal Harare and Botanical Gardens where the rainwater sits trapped on the road as the grass verges have become overgrown preventing natural drainage. Every heavy rainfall event sees this road covered in large pools of trapped water, followed rapidly by an outbreak of potholes due to the high traffic load. And yet every year, sometimes a few times in the year, the same potholes are repaired – this cycle continues. If the City Engineers put some effort towards preventative maintenance by grading off the grass verges back to the design grades to allow rainfall to run off directly, there would be far fewer pot holes developing after every heavy storm. The cost of a grader to do this sort of work is two days with competent Operators and Survey Technicians (which the Municipality have, or can hire) – surely far less than the continual repair work, and lets not forget the cost of broken rims and damaged tyres to the road user (the tax, toll, rates, levy payer) .
Another example is the number of storm drains that are blocked, causing the same problem to occur – flooding, traffic, potholes. An excellent storm drain infrastructure exists in the older areas of the city yet they have never been properly maintained, and so the destructive cycle continues. Residents and Shop-keepers are partly to blame as all too often Gardeners can be seen sweeping their rubbish into the storm drains.
Good luck with the meeting – lets hope the Municipality can try to be more pro-active in their duties.