Where R60 million will be spent fixing Joburg roads

19 March 2014 - 15:22 By Penwell Dlamini
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WATER MESS: Flood damage to Coleraine Drive in Sandton
WATER MESS: Flood damage to Coleraine Drive in Sandton
Image: Raymond Preston

The Johannesburg Roads Agency will spend an estimated R60-million to repair the city’s damaged road infrastructure caused by the recent heavy rains.

This includes about R23-million which will be spent on the repair of damaged road infrastructure network including potholes and storm water drains.

A further R37-million will be spent on rehabilitation of bridges and culverts damaged during the heavy downpours.

Nine bridges have been prioritized for reconstruction and upgraded to ensure safe passage of vehicles and pedestrians.

These include:

- Main Road culvert in Riverbend Agricultural Holdings;
- Felstead Road culvert in Northriding;
- Third Street culvert;
- Watercombe street culvert;
- Cornelius Road culvert over Klein Juskei River;
- Ballyclare Drive bridge over Braamfontein Spruit in Bryanston;
- Niven Road culvert in Douglasdale;
- Riverside Road bridge, Ivory Park; and
- Coleraine Drive culvert in Sandton.

In addition to the bridge rehabilitations, JRA will be repairing 12 703 potholes and 37 545 patchings and minor repairs on some 887 storm water drains.

JRA managing director Skhumbuzo Macozoma said the agency currently had a budget of R1.4-billion for all its projects for improving road infrastructure, up from last year’s R800-million.

The agency is also trying to come up with new innovations of managing road infrastructure and traffic lights.

At least 23 incidents of vandalized traffic lights are recorded each month costing JRA about R250 000 a month. About 70 road accidents are reported per month also damaging traffic lights and this costs the agency R500 000 a month.

Macozoma said the agency was taking a new direction and would use the latest technology to improve road maintainance and communication with the public.

“We have brought in some highly qualified staff recently because the JRA over time had lost quite a lot of engineering capacity and also some of the strategic leadership that we need,” said Macozoma.

He said motorists who wanted to claim for damages caused by damaged road infrastructure could do so but this would require investigation by the JRA and also its insurance partners.

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