Robert Dempster
PICPMB Blog
The long walk to a conclusion
Pietermaritzburg is in a mess, literally and figuratively
First posted: 21 August 2017
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Robert DempsterPICPMB BlogThe long walk to a conclusion
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If you are going to leave this page with an opinion regarding what I have had to say here, I would encourage you to read all of the text that appears here and also that which accompanies some of the photographs and then follows on after the photographs.
.Since I started riding a bicycle after retiring, I have maintained that the best way to see whatever it is you are travelling through, is on a bicycle. Recently I tore my left bicep distal tendon and had to have it repaired. For the repair I need to thank Medicross, Mediclinic and PMBOrtho. Subsequent to the repair I have neither been unable to ride or drive. I had to walk, and it has been like that for six weeks now. So at least twice a week My dear wife drops me at Virgin Active off Town Bush Road. There I cycle going nowhere slowly for 45 minutes. After that I often walk home. That takes me back up Town Bush Road to the vicinity of the intersection of Town Bush Road and Nonsuch Road.
So what is all this about? Well I now have to admit that having to walk rather than ride or drive up Town Bush Road I am getting to see the sidewalk its immediate environs in a lot more detail. Sadly the detail has revealed the many small things that are not right along the sidewalk as one heads up Town Bush Road. I have photographed some of the problems and they can be seen below together with brief explanations or comment regarding the problems where I felt that was necessary.
While any one of these problems on its own would not be cause for concern, that there are so many of the one side of this stretch of road that is less that 3 km long is a cause for serious concern. The reason is simple and it is that this one side of this section of road is probably symptomatic of the bigger picture and that picture must be dismal.
As can be seen from the photographs they are not all negative. The PMB Municipality is getting some things right. I have always been impressed with the refuse removal and my impression is that it continues to improve. Street sweeping in the CBD along Boshoff Street has also always impressed me. Unfortunately there are other areas in the CBD and its outskirts that are hideously filthy and unkept. The state of the road at the end of Cloete Street is particular disturbing as it is close to the point where children attending Saint Christopher's School are dropped off and collected. Closer to home, and also getting back to Town Bush Road, the Cascades Stream in the vicinity of the Park (basically and open area where the grass is occasionally cut), is completely and grossly overgrown.
I have now lived in the New South Africa for more than twenty years and during that time I have been mindful of the criticism I have leveled at the PMB Municipality. The new order deserved a chance to get to grips with running the city and a couple of failures along the way were to be expected. Unfortunately for me that period of grace has passed. Now I find my conscience dictating to me that I call a spade a spade. Those running the city have failed to do so effectively and the situation is getting worse rather than better. It has always amazed me that the City, the province to a lesser extent and certainly the country as a whole has not been able to get to grips with the policing of all forms of traffic, even in the face of the continuing cost to the city, province and country in terms of lives and other resources. The same could be said of littering and unlawful dumping. Surely that is a problem that could be successfully tackled.Even the President must have on occasion thought that the latter problem has gone on for long enough, and that this lawlessness had to stop. How can he think and believe that he and and his government is actually governing the country when they are clearly unable to solve the problems I have alluded to. The same is of course true of all those between them and the hands that ultimate drop the litter and run the traffic lights.
Finally I am left wondering what exactly the opposition actually achieves within the context of the management of traffic, dumping and littering in Pietermaritzburg. Sure there may have been some small successes, but the answer in terms of the bigger picture with respect to traffic, dumping and littering has to be very little, if anything at all.
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Takes a while to load, but then proceeds quite smoothly. Looses image aspect ratio for portrait images i.e., squashes them.
If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or plain criticism, I would appreciate it if you would communicate the same to me.
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