Acting Ekurhuleni spokesperson Lebogang Ramashala said, on Friday, that the council has started “patching” potholes across the municipality.
She said many potholes are still water-logged, which complicates repair operations.
Many roads have borne the brunt of the recent incessant rainfall and, in many cases, widening and deepening existing potholes.
Roads in areas such as the Benoni Agricultural Holdings (BAH) and Marister have deteriorated even further after the rainfall.
These include Gum Road, Ash Road, Meyer Road, Karee Avenue, Kiaat Avenue, Muller Road, Skool Avenue, Purchase Road, Jarrah Road, Oak Road and Ystervark Street, to name a few.
The state of roads in the BAH and Marister has, for many years, resulted in public dissatisfaction.
Clr Pieter Henning, whose ward includes the BAH, Petit and Marister, said the roads are in a shocking state.
“As we all know, many of these roads were in a poor condition before the persistent rain over the last 10 days, but the situation has deteriorated very badly,” said Henning.
“In some cases some sections of roads (like Skool Avenue) are just holes from one side to the other for 70m plus.
“Some portions of gravel roads are completely washed away and motorists have to drive on side walks where possible.”
According to Ekurhuleni acting spokesperson, Themba Gadebe, many of the roads in these two areas were sand-sealed in the ’80s and early ’90s.
“The design life of these sand-sealed roads at the time was estimated to be five to eight years, with minimum maintenance in between,” said Gadebe.
“Over the years, in an effort to retain the ‘black top’, injudicious and expensive maintenance was done on these roads, which resulted in them outlasting their ‘design life’.
“In an effort to satisfy residents who reside along these roads, huge amounts of funding were spent purely to salvage a ‘black top’ that was doomed to fail in any event, sooner or later.
“Notwithstanding these injudicious maintenance measures, most of these roads have now reached a stage where it is totally uneconomical to patch and repair the surfaces.”
Gadebe said the sand-sealed roads will be maintained until they becomes uneconomical.
The roads that cannot be salvaged will be reverted back to gravel roads.
“The solution or goal will be to reconstruct all these roads as proper designed surfaced roads (paying attention to the foundation),” said Gadebe.
“However, the large number of these roads that will require reconstruction, and the cost involved, makes it impossible to reconstruct them all at once.”
He said these roads in the agricultural holdings are budgeted for.
The councillors are involved in identifying roads needing priority.
Gadebe did not indicate which roads would be graded and when this would be done.
Readers took to the Benoni City Times Facebook page to voice their opinion on potholes in Benoni
“The roads are terrible in-and-around the Benoni area, and nothing is been done to fix them,” said Nasreen Lambat.
“Even when they are repaired, within a week or so, the potholes are back again.”
Heila de Swardt said: “The roads have been great for the most part. Heavy and persistent rain will definitely tear the toads apart when there is a crack – then with vehicles, especially trucks, driving over those wet cracks will make a hole quickly.
“I trust they budgeted for pothole and road repair which must happen quickly now – they must also use gravel first, to fill the holes.
“Old repairs will also wash out again.”
Another reader, Wayne Day, said: “Yes. There are a lot more, but driving around today (March 13) I noticed that they are busy repairing some – they are busy at the robots by the Linmed and have done all the potholes on Uys Road.”
Zanele Mokatula said: “[I] usually don’t complain much about our roads in Benoni, but the rains this past week have affected them badly.”
Engineer discusses road break-up
The presence of water and overloading on roads are the two biggest factors in road deterioration.
According to a roads engineer, who did not want to be named, water is the biggest culprit to road damage.
This is followed by heavy trucks that have an “extremely detrimental effect on roads”.
He said once water breaks through a roads seal, quick action needs to be taken to salvage a road.
The engineer said that if between 15 to 20 per cent of a road’s cracks and holes are patched, then a road needs more than just patching.
He said road maintenance is hampered by abnormal rain and that municipalities do struggle to keep up with this after torrential rainfall.
