The City of Cape Town’s plan to build a wall along a notorious section of the N2 freeway to protect motorists has been criticised from community leaders and politicians.
Earlier this year, the City announced that it would build a new barrier along the N2 towards Cape Town International Airport to combat frequent attacks on passing motorists.
The stretch of road has been dubbed “the Hell Run” by residents due to the danger it presents. Criminals frequently target motorists using a variety of methods.
When traffic is slow-moving, criminals will walk between cars and threaten drivers for their valuables, such as phones, handbags, and wallets.
At other times, individuals have thrown rocks or dropped cement blocks off the pedestrian bridges to damage passing vehicles in an attempt to make them pull over.
Others have thrown objects into the road to make drivers believe they ran into a child, at which point a second group of criminals will pull up alongside the driver, telling them to stop.
All of these actions have resulted in cases of theft, smash-and-grabs, and even more serious incidents where persons have been injured or killed.
In response, the City intends to build a new barrier to separate the freeway from the surrounding townships, which the criminals quickly retreat into once they have targeted a victim.
The R114-million project will add new pedestrian crossings, improved lighting, access control, safety barriers for recreation spaces, safer grazing practices for animals, and measures to limit illegal dumping.
This also forms part of the City’s larger plans to increase security on the N2, adding 40 new metro police, additional CCTV cameras, and automated number plate recognition.
However, this plan has been criticised by opposition parties and residents in the area, who claim that the wall will exacerbate the divide between Cape Town’s wealthy and poor communities.
In August 2026, roughly 200 residents, activists, and community organisations gathered in Woodstock to voice their concerns, reported EWN.
The most common sentiment was that the millions of rands earmarked for the wall would be better spent addressing housing shortages, community safety, and social development.
“It seems like the mayor is emphasising the safety of commuters on the N2 and less about the safety of the people who are actually going to be living next to the wall,” said Movement for Care coordinator Nkosikhona Swaartbooi.
Parliament’s Appropriations Committee chairperson Mmusi Maimane said that the wall would become a symbol of the country’s divided past, and that resources should be directed towards crime-fighting efforts.
The ANC went so far as to call the project “South Africa’s Berlin Wall,” arguing that a physical barrier would only shift criminal activity elsewhere, rather than eliminate it.
Speaking at the We The Nation Election debate in Cape Town on Sunday, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis defended the project, insisting that the N2 wall is an anti-crime intervention, according to eNCA.
He rejected the notion that the project was an admission of failure to transform marginalised communities affected by high crime rates.
“Not at all. The fact of the matter is that it is far too easy for pedestrians and people with malign intent to access a national highway. It cannot be that easy to access the national highway,” he said.
When the project was first announced, Hill-Lewis commented that it wasn’t fair that a small number of criminal elements were impacting the safety of hundreds of thousands of daily users of the N2.
The mayor said that the project will not only repair existing barriers but will install new ones along with other safety improvements like better lighting and more frequent police patrols.
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