Digging up campus

18 August 2006

Properties and Services are assisting the supaTsela project by providing sleeves (special underground pipes) in which fibre optic cables will be placed. These fibre optic cables will be used to connect buildings on campus to the new network core as specified in the Network Blueprint.

Disruption to parking bays, traffic flow and landscaping

In order to provide these sleeves, considerable civil works are required. For example, the contractors for the civil works will be laying 6 000m (or 6km) of pipe and carting in 100 cubic metres of sand fill. The routes that the sleeves follow mean that sections of campus will need to be dug up. Unfortunately, this means that we can expect some significant disruptions to parking bays, traffic flow and landscaping during the 16 week contract.

The expected disruptions are as follows.

Partial loss of parking bays at Bremner Building.
Partial loss of parking bays in Chemistry Mall.
Partial loss of parking bays at Sports Centre.
Traffic disruption to North Bus Stop.
Traffic disruption to Woolsack Drive.
Traffic disruption to Upper Ring Road.
Traffic disruption opposite Visitor's Centre.
Traffic disruption at entrance to Chemical Eng. Parking.
Traffic disruption at entrance to Music School Parking.

Work commenced last week so that some of the work could be completed before the second semester started and will be carried out over 16 weeks. While these disruptions can be frustrating, the benefits will be evident once all the new fibre optic cables are in place and all buildings are connected to the new network. For more information on the supaTsela project and the new network design, please refer to the project website: www.supatsela.uct.ac.za.

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