Prepare for months of traffic chaos in Joburg
The City of Joburg has budgeted a total of R1.4 billion to improve roads, storm water infrastructure and bridges during the 2015/16 financial year.
The department is to spend more than R365-million this financial year alone to reconstruct, rehabilitate and maintain freeways, roads and streets as part of its R110 billion multi-year infrastructure investment programme.
Some of the motorways earmarked for the makeover include the Soweto Freeway, and the M1 and M2 highways, the city department said, adding that some of the work has already started.
Johannesburg executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau said that the city aims to “create a better future for our residents, enabling us to link jobs to people and people to jobs in line with the objectives of our spatial transformation programme – the Corridors of Freedom”.
The projects are being undertaken by the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) – the City’s roads infrastructure and maintenance entity – to ease congestion, redesign apartheid-led development to be more accommodating, and redirect traffic flow in and out of the city to increase mobility and stimulate commerce.
As a result of the increasingly high traffic volumes over the years, many of the roads and bridges are badly in need of reconstruction, City of Joburg said.
Watch: High speed police chase through Joburg streets
Some of the city’s ageing bridges, and those damaged during recent flooding, will also be rebuilt at a total cost of R152-million. Three bridges in Soweto – Leselinyana-Kinini, Nxumalo and Zulu Mahalefele – are being upgraded at a combined cost of R100-million.
Work on the three bridges is expected to result in road closures in the township with JRA’s acting MD, Mpho Kau, urging residents to exercise restraint.
“Motorists should please bear with us during construction as this is all part of a plan to make the City better and brighter. Congestions will be a thing of the past once all the rehabilitative work has been undertaken,” Kau said.
“Motorists are advised to obey traffic officials and to adhere to the rules of the road at all times,” Tau said, with EyeWitness News reporting that the construction work ‘would definitely cause congestion’.
The agency will also undertake maintenance work on storm water infrastructure, culverts, traffic lights and signage.
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