The N3 Eastern Bypass is a section of the

Johannesburg Ring Road The Johannesburg Ring Road is a set of Johannesburg Freeways, freeways that circle the city of Johannesburg, South Africa and service the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. The entire Ring Roads in South Africa, ring road is appro ...

that forms a beltway around the city of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, as part of the N3. The first section of the freeway opened in 1971, from Buccleuch to the interchange with Main Reef Road in Germiston. This is one reason why

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as the m ...

is listed as the southbound destination of this route, from the Buccleuch to Geldenhuys Interchanges, rather than to the Elands Interchange south of Germiston. The remaining section from Main Reed Road to Black Reef Road (Rand Airport Road), which included the construction of the Geldenhuys Interchange, was opened in 1977, linking the Eastern Bypass with the N3 freeway to

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. The interchange at Main Reef Road was removed and Main Reef Road is now an overbridge. Much of the highway forms a border between

and Ekurhuleni. From the south, the Eastern Bypass begins at the Elands Interchange, where it merges with the N12 Southern Bypass. It ends at the Buccleuch Interchange, where it merges with the N1 Western Bypass and M1 freeways. Other exits include M46 Rand Airport Road (southbound only), M2 motorway Johannesburg/Germiston (Geldenhuys Interchange), M52 Van Buuren Road, R24 OR Tambo Int'l Airport / N12 eMalahleni (George Bizos Interchange), M16 Linksfield Road, R25 Modderfontein Road, M54 London Road, and M60 Marlboro Road. The entire Eastern Bypass was part of the Gauteng e-Toll Project and had open road tolling from 3 December 2013 up until e-tolls were discontinued in Gauteng on 12 April 2024.

References

{{Johannesburg freeways Streets and roads of Johannesburg N3 (South Africa) Johannesburg Ring Road