As someone who grew up in Cape Town and later moved to Johannesburg, I’ve been asked plenty of times what it’s like driving in each city, and which one I prefer.
Both cities have their traffic issues and driving quirks, and offer rather different driving experiences as a result.
This is what I’ve found after spending a substantial amount of time on each city’s roads.
The roads
Cape Town’s highway traffic tends to be worse than Johannesburg’s, but only at certain times of the day, and Johannesburg feels busier overall.
A large part of Cape Town’s traffic issues stems from the fact that thousands of people travel to work in the CBD each day along only a few roads, relatively speaking, such as the N1, N2, M3, and R27.
The M3 in particular is the main road running through much of Cape Town’s southern suburbs, including busy areas such as Newlands which has several traffic lights.
Many of Cape Town’s schools are also concentrated within a few kilometres of one another, which compounds the traffic problems in the mornings and early afternoons in these areas.
Another issue is that many of Cape Town’s roads are rather narrow – relatively speaking – often with only one or two lanes.
If you live somewhere like Hout Bay or Fish Hoek, for example, travelling to the CBD requires taking one of a handful of busy single-lane roads either along the coast or over the mountain.
Even main roads like the M3 only have two lanes for most of their duration, and traffic also tends to bottleneck in areas like Hospital Bend where the N2 and M3 converge.
Johannesburg’s roads in comparison, are often much wider with more lanes, and the traffic problems that arise usually seem to be the result of the volume of cars rather than bottlenecks like in Cape Town.
Driving through Joburg towards Centurion, it is far more common to see roads with at least two lanes, and highways will often have anywhere from three to five.
The result of this is that traffic in Johannesburg always moves, albeit very slowly at times, whereas on a particularly bad day in Cape Town you can sit with your car in neutral on the highway for minutes at a time.
The sheer number of cars appears to play a large role in the City of Gold’s traffic issues, too, as all five lanes will easily be filled during rush hour traffic, but you are at least moving, and the traffic usually improves once you take a slip road off the highway.
Outside of rush hour, Johannesburg’s average traffic numbers are higher than that of a comparable road in Cape Town, which makes it easier to get where you need to go in the Mother City outside of those morning and evening crunch hours.
The drivers
One thing that I have appreciated since moving to Johannesburg is that drivers are far better at giving way to other cars than in Cape Town.
There have been times driving in Cape Town where I left my indicator on for minutes without a single person letting me in, necessitating that I slowly force my way into the correct lane lest I miss my turn-off.
Driving in Johannesburg, its a far more common sight to see someone let another car into their lane only moments after the person began indicating.
It’s a similar story at intersections and turning circles, where it’s a more likely occurrence to see someone stop to let you go, even at times when it’s their right of way.
The drivers in Gauteng are generally a bit more aggressive, though, as even small gaps between cars moving at high speeds are easily filled up by another motorist merging into the lane.
Traffic lights
One area where Cape Town is vastly superior to Gauteng’s central hub is traffic signalisation.
Many of Cape Town’s traffic lights have been synchronized to improve the flow of vehicles, especially during rush hour.
Synchronization is when the timing on traffic lines is modified so that, in an ideal situation, a person who goes through a green light at the legal speed will reach the next set of lights as they turn green.
Most of the traffic lights in Johannesburg do not appear to have this, and I often let out a sigh as I reach a red light when I can see that the next set of lights ahead of me are green, knowing that they will be red by the time I reach them.
As a result, Joburg’s traffic can be much more stop-start as you go from light to light, which can be frustrating.
Cape Town also appears to make greater use of sensors for its traffic lights.
Several traffic lights in Cape Town are green by default for the busiest direction, and will only change when a car pulls up from one of the opposing roads.
Meanwhile in Johannesburg, the majority of lights appear to simply operate on a timer, which means it’s not a rare occurrence to be sitting at a red light placed outside an office park on a Sunday morning, or on an empty road at 2am.
Join the discussion