The upgrade of the N1 Section 3 from Worcester (km3.5) to Glen Heatlie (km 14)
The project is located on a 10,5 km long portion of the existing N1 National Route that provides national mobility between the Western Cape and Gauteng together with local mobility between Worcester and De Doorns as well as the Karoo.
Project Overview
The existing roadway is typically a 2-lane single carriageway with 3.7m lanes and 2.5m surfaced shoulders. It has no climbing lanes and no steep grades. The current speed limit is 100 km/h with a section where it has been reduced to 80 km/h.
The existing road does not meet the required horizontal and vertical standards for a 120km/h design speed and only complies with an approximately 90 km/h design speed in terms of current geometric standards.
The upgrade of the N1 Section 3 from Worcester (km3.5) to Glen Heatlie (km 14) will address the following:
- Upgrade the current road to a dual carriageway/freeway standard
- Improve the horizontal and vertical alignment to comply with a 120km/h design speed parameters
- Utilise the existing road as one carriageway of the upgrade to save costs
- Utilise existing structures as far as possible
- Provide local access to the freeway with the provision of service roads parallel to the new road
- Implementation of the Worcester East Interchange at km 4, as well the tie-in of the planned Worcester East Ring Road connecting to the R60
- Provision of underpasses to serve local agricultural activities where required
- Relocation of critical services infrastructure where affected by the proposed upgrade
- Provision of road-over-road, rail and river crossings where required
- Conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the proposed route options investigated
The project is currently (February 2023) in its Preliminary Design phase and is scheduled to go out to tender middle of 2026.
