Spaghetti road gives hope to taxi operators
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Wednesday July 26, 2017 12:19
The Thapama Interchange is the first of its kind in Botswana, and it is expected to boost the local economy through an improved transportation system, which will ease traffic flow in and out of the city, especially always chock-a-block and ever-busy A1.
Taximen and women have been enjoying unlimited usage of the meandering Spaghetti since April and are full of praise for the innovative motoring structure.
Gadzikanani Tema told Mmegi that the usage of the new interchange for over the months has eased traffic flow to the bus rank and along the A1 road. He said the Thapama interchange is already boosting the taxi business in the city.
He said the road will create more business opportunities as it will help market the city to potential investors.
Another taxi driver from Monarch location, Ashel Machara, shared the same sentiments with Tema. He said he was happy about being given access to use the spaghetti road.
“For a taxi business time is money. The taxi business is challenging because our market is saturated. If the roads are good and open, it helps us to serve our customers better as we will do business more efficiently and make more profit,” he said. Machara indicated that after being allowed to use the Thapama interchange more taxi operators from Francistown South who had moved to the Monarch location during and before the construction of the Thapama interchange created more challenges for them.
He said the migration of the Francistown taxi operators created a difficult working environment due to more competition for customers.
The Monarch taxi operator said nowadays they are enjoying the good working environment and have less rivals because their competitors relocated back to their locations of business.
A local businessman, Moemedi Mathunya said the road has managed to reduce fuel emissions since vehicles spend less time on the interchange section. He said the spaghetti road will also attract both local and international investors, in the process creating employment for the youth.
Mathunya also stated that after Thapama interchange is officially opened, Francistown will be the centre of attraction in Botswana thus turning the city into a tourism hub.
The Thapama interchange was projected to be completed by August 2016 but missed numerous completion dates. The authorities stated that unforeseen circumstances like the relocation of services belonging to the Botswana Telecommunication Corporations (BTC), Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) and Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) among other factors led to the project to missing its initial completion date.
In addition the progress of the work was delayed by the relocation of the Somerset East residents, who held off on moving out of the construction area.
President Ian Khama had said in his State of Nation Address late last year that the interchange will be completed in February. The completion date was further postponed to April 2017 by the Minister of Transport and Communications Kitso Mokaila who said the delay of the completion of the project was caused by downpours that the city experienced for some weeks in January.