Green Point residents, visitors lose direction over new developments

Just how pedestrian friendly will the new Green Point of 2010 & beyond be?

On a daily basis the new Green Point Stadium grows in hulking stature at the hands of huge construction crews. Around it roads are closed, dug up, diverted. Verges and pavements are cordoned off with barriers of steel fencing.

Residents, visitors to Cape Town and property and business owners are all asking how the new developments will affect their access to places like the V & A Waterfront: especially pedestrian access.

Rosemary Williams who owns an apartment on Vesperdene Road and operates an accommodation rental company, www.rentalscapetown.com says: "One of the big attractions to our clients renting holiday accommodation in Green Point is the close proximity of huge array of shops and restaurants at the V & A Waterfront. It is a mere 800 metre walk from many of our apartments to the gates of the Waterfront along Portswood Road. This is a great location benefit for someone that wants to go and enjoy dinner and wine without having to worry about driving or having to pay the stiff parking fees charged at the Waterfront."

The concern at major road work and construction of the huge 68000 seater stadium is that the Western Boulevard and Main Road where they converge at Portswood Road will be modified to accommodate massive surges of vehicle movement before and after events held at the stadium whilst isolating residential Green Point foot traffic from the Waterfront and even the Green Point Urban Park.

Thankfully this is not the case. Ron Kingmer, City of Cape Town Roads, says of the works currently under way: "Pedestrian access to the Waterfront along Portswood Road from Green Point with the crossings over Main Road and the Western Boulevard will remain. If anything this access route will improve with additional greening and landscaping on the cards to replace the fairly nondescript entry to Portswood Road from the Green Point side."

It gets better, the busy Green Point traffic circle will undergo substantial changes. Continues Kingmer, "The Green Point circle will be raised to allow on-foot access to the Stadium and Urban Park precincts underneath it, without walkers having to contend with heavy traffic." And it doesn't end here: a new road, Granger Bay Boulevard, will run from the circle and come out on Mouille Point 's Beach Road between the historic Somerset Hospital and Fort Wynyard buildings.

"We'd buy another flat off Main Road if we could, now that we know what is in the pipeline for this area," says Williams. "Far from cutting off the houses and apartments on the Signal Hill side of Main Road the new roads will further enhance its connection to the green belt, Waterfront and Mouille Point beachfront."