My first SAICE event experience was in the form of a site visit: The Hanover Park Sky Circle. This project entails the upgrading of the surrounding road network including exclusive transit lanes and the construction of an innovative elevated traffic roundabout. This is the construction of the first freestanding elevated traffic circle in South Africa.

The project is located at the intersection of Govan Mbeki Road (M9) and Jan Smuts Drive (M17).

The 23rd of February was finally here, and I made sure to get all my PPE required for the site visit. We all came together to meet at the WBHO Construction Yard in Philippi. We went to the Civils 2000 offices and met up with Chris Jansen, the project manager, and undertook a safety induction led by André Ford, the senior safety officer.

Chris provided an overview presentation of the project:
This project forms part of the MyCiti service to the metro-southeast and will benefit the surrounding communities of Hanover Park, Philippi, Lansdowne/Wetton, and Yorkshire Estate. There are numerous benefits of the elevated traffic circle and other upgrades including reduced travel times and reliable service for MyCiti commuters, reduced traffic congestion, and dedicated lanes for pedestrians and cyclists separated from the road.

This project has a R540 million budget and still has 32 months left to complete. The project mainly entails:
• Approach ramps: Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) retaining walls, multi-span bridge.
• A 6.2 m Elevated roundabout – Sky Circle (or many times referred to as the donut in the sky) which will be for exclusive use by the MyCiti buses. This will ensure optimal service between Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, and Wynberg and Claremont without traffic or congestion delay at the ground level of the intersection. Figure 1: Illustration of the completed Hanover Park Sky Circle.

Chris made us aware that this is one of the biggest projects he has been involved with in his career, but also the most challenging because of the construction process and due to the many crime-related incidents they have to deal with on a regular basis.
After everyone got a chance to ask questions, we hopped into the minibuses to transport us to the site. We had a glimpse out the windows to look at the layer works while driving to our destination. The 2 ramps are now in construction, so we split into 2 groups and each group went to a separate ramp. Now we got the opportunity to see all the reinforced concrete works up-close. We got a better glimpse of the whole site after climbing up some scaffolding stairs to get a 360° view. I felt a bit sceptic of walking on the scaffolding and felt very grateful that I am rather in pavement engineering, where you are always flat on the ground. Afterwards we drove back to the Civils 2000 offices and had some refreshments, and good company with the rest of the attendees.

After the whole experience I found a new respect for the people responsible for our infrastructure projects on site and everything they must go through to ensure we have a better life and future.

Thank you to Chris Jansen and Civils 2000 for accommodating us!

Figure 2 - Left: Chris Jansen provides an overview of the project; Right: Arrival on site with the one ramp under construction in the background.
Figure 3 - Left: On top of the scaffolding; Right: Refreshments back at the site office.
Riaan Lourens
Graduate Pavement Engineer
MPAMOT Africa (Pty) Ltd.