Conceived, abandoned, relaunched, cancelled — and now back again
Key decision points in Cape Town's Foreshore Freeway project, late 1960s to 2 October 2026
~50
years the structures have stood unfinished
R8.3bn
estimated build cost in the cancelled 2018 bid process (2017 values)
Late 1960s
A freeway vision modelled on New York
City engineers draw up plans for an elevated freeway system connecting the Cape Town CBD with Eastern and Western Boulevards, inspired by American planner Robert Moses's freeway-building approach.
Early 1970s
Construction begins on the elevated structures
Work starts on the bridge and elevated sections under City Engineer Solly Morris. The project is intended as a major arterial link between the CBD and coastal areas.
1977
Construction halted — “Solly’s Folly” is born
Cape Town's city council stops construction, citing budget constraints. Funds are redirected in part to the establishment of Mitchells Plain, which absorbed 60,000 inner-city residents displaced under apartheid spatial planning. The concrete columns are left mid-air. The structures are quickly nicknamed "Solly's Folly."
2015
Top deck repurposed as a parking area
The City of Cape Town begins using the bridge's western upper deck as a designated parking facility — a pragmatic if underwhelming fate for the abandoned structure.
July 2016
City launches a Request for Proposals
Mayor Patricia de Lille's administration invites the private sector to submit development proposals for the Foreshore Freeway Precinct — the first formal revival of the project in nearly four decades.
9 February 2017
Seven proposals received; six go to public exhibition
Seven submissions arrive by the deadline. One is eliminated in an initial screening for responsiveness; the remaining six are publicly exhibited at the Cape Town Civic Centre from 7 to 21 March 2017.
February 2018
A qualifying bidder is named — at an estimated R8.3 billion
The Bid Evaluation Committee concludes Stage 1. Mitchell Du Plessis Associates (MDA) — Proposal F — is announced as the qualifying bidder. Core build costs are estimated at R8.3 billion in 2017 values, including the new highway infrastructure and a privately funded affordable-housing component.
18 July 2018
City Manager cancels the entire process
City Manager Lungelo Mbandazayo formally cancels the RFP after receiving legal advice that the evaluation criteria were too vague. Bidders had lodged complaints about the process, and a News24 investigation described the tender as having "made potential corruption easy." The six bidders were first notified on 13 July. De Lille insists the project is "not dead and buried."
By 2023
Structures become an informal homeless encampment
With no active project and the parking lot still in use, the bridge area is increasingly occupied by homeless residents — the latest chapter in the structures' long limbo.
2 October 2026
Hill-Lewis unveils a new vision — the same City Manager at his side
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis launches the Foreshore Precinct Project at the unfinished bridges themselves, calling it the end of "50-year-old unfinished business." The plan: a new link bridge to Helen Suzman Boulevard, an outbound underground tunnel alongside Duncan Road, and 15 hectares unlocked for a new neighbourhood including affordable housing. Standing with him is City Manager Lungelo Mbandazayo — the same official who cancelled the last process in 2018. No cost figure, funding model, or affordable-unit target is announced. The City is still in discussions with Transnet over port land required for the tunnel. Phase 2 construction is projected to continue until approximately 2040.
Cape Town's Foreshore Freeway has been formally revived and formally abandoned at least once before — the 2016–18 process produced a qualifying bidder, a cost estimate and a privately funded affordable-housing plan before being cancelled in July 2018 by the same City Manager who stood alongside Mayor Hill-Lewis at the October 2026 announcement. But the pattern is deeper than personnel: the original project was shelved in 1977 partly because funding was diverted to Mitchells Plain, tying the freeway's fate to apartheid spatial priorities from the outset. Therefore the 2026 vision's most telling absences — no cost figure, no funding model, no unit target for affordable homes, no Transnet agreement — are not details still to be worked out; they are precisely the questions the previous process failed to resolve before it collapsed.
Daily Maverick · Source: Wikipedia, Foreshore Freeway Bridge (retrieved Oct 2026); Daily Maverick, July 2018; The Conversation, 2018
