Peter Schoonraad, Camps Bay
They all see it and make various comments. I refer to the unfinished bridge on the Foreshore. It’s been like that for years. Few seem to know why it was never completed. Some suggest lack of finance.
Others believe it is out of alignment due to a mathematical error. Whatever the real reason, it seems to be a monument to failure. It serves no purpose. Or does it? Well it doesn’t serve the purpose it was intended to. It’s the freeway that never was.
Around and about the traffic never stops. Day after day. Year after year. It flows and flows. And the flow would have been easier, quicker, smoother and better if only the bridge had reached the other side.
Now everyone is forced to go around and under and then to halt at the traffic lights. They get there, but it takes longer.
Inevitably, I think of other bridges, other solutions, other facilitators. They abound. Life is full of them. Where ever you go. A bridge across a river, across a gorge, or across a city. And you seem to fly with such ease from one side to another. That’s what it’s about – getting across to the other side.
Reaching a destination safely and with minimum delay. Delays soak up valuable time. Delays cause problems – fatigue, impatience, anger. Bridges are facilitators. No more, no less. They can never, must never be an end in themselves, but always the means to an end. Rather the means to the achievement of purpose.