A broken traffic light in Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen.
Commuting to school or work is a nightmare for many Johannesburg residents as traffic lights across the city are often dysfunctional. Now, the city’s roads agency says it needs R70 million to fix them.
“It’s a really dire situation,” said Cllr Sean Kreusch, member of the city’s roads and transport portfolio committee. A situation, he said, that would be familiar to “anybody that lives anywhere in the Johannesburg Metro”.
The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) is responsible for 2 023 signalised intersections. But a shrinking budget means that there is less maintenance and more chaos on the roads.
According to Kreusch, the budget fell from R1.4 billion in 2016 to R809 million at present. “Signals have become a casualty of the financial restraints of the city,” he said.
In a hurry to get commuters to wherever they need to be, motorists often carelessly cross through intersections, placing themselves and other road users at risk.
“It’s not just about the fact that these signals are down. What we’re seeing is a deterioration of the rule of law and it’s going to continue as taxis go through signals that are broken and they don’t treat them as four-way stops,” he said.
It is not just the 37 minutes residents lose every day to nonfunctional traffic lights – it costs money too. Recent research placed the economic cost at more than R28 000 per year, considering added fuel expenses caused by delays.
