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Issue Date: April 2001

North Coast Road development using Civil Designer

1 April 2001

The upgrading of North Coast Road, an important Durban commuter route carrying a high portion of buses and minibus taxis, to a dual carriageway arterial road should relieve rush-hour traffic flow substantially, allowing travellers to reach their destinations more efficiently and in less time.
Since the early planning and development days, Civil Designer and its predecessor, Stardust, have been used for the design of the upgrading of North Coast Road. The upgrading is to a dual carriageway arterial road providing three lanes in each direction over approximately 6,6 km from Connaught Interchange in the south to the outer ring road in the north.
The powerful Civil Designer software package handled the design of the 6 lanes with ease.
The basic vertical and horizontal alignment, again handled with ease by the software, was completed in 1988 in order to finalise land acquisitions. Some 75 properties were affected ranging from embankment servitudes to total acquisitions.
North Coast Road was to be built in two phases, the first phase from the outer ring road to Blackburn road and the second phase from Connaught Interchange to Blackburn Road. Each of these phases were handled in a number of stages.
The first phase
This consisted of the construction of a lateral support system for the future railway underpass in the vicinity of Malacca Road; the construction of a railway tunnel; the construction of the arterial from Blackburn Road to the outer ring road. This project started in January 1991 and was completed in excellent time in April 1994.
The total cost of the first phase was in the order of R55m.
The second phase
This phase, from Connaught Interchange to Blackburn Road, which was completed in June 1998, included the construction of the arterial from the Connaught Interchange to Stanhope Place. The present stage consists of the completion of North Coast Road from Stanhope Place to Blackburn Road. This phase commenced in March 1999 and completion is expected in June 2004. The total cost of this final phase will be in the order of R85m.
All design aspects of the second phase have been handled using Civil Designer. Designed in the offices of the Durban Office of City Engineer's Roads Department, the software has also been used on site by various contractors, to monitor volumes and for batter board setting out and verification of quantities.
Brian Cadle says, "Our organisation has used the software since 1988 and we could not imagine trying to attempt a project of this extent and with the tight deadlines and cost constraints without such a product."
Allyson Lawless
(011) 476 4100


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