Councillor Emi Koekemoer visits problem bridges in ward 104
Ward 104 Councillor Emi Koekemoer and Sean Kreush assesses the state of the bridges and road infrastructure
Ward 104 Councillor Emi Koekemoer and Democratic Alliance’s shadow Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) of Transport Sean Kreusch held an oversight to ascertain the state of the bridges and the road infrastructure around the ward.
The first stop was the riverbank on the CR Swart Drive bridge, which is slowly eroding and collapsing, affecting properties and businesses. The oversight ended at the Gertrude Bridge, which was recently hit by floods that left immense damage to nearby homes.
Koekemoer explained that the visited sites are in quite a bad situation, considering that the Transport Department, Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) claims that they are going to push this massive amount of money into road infrastructure. “We are unfortunately not seeing that translate into real-time impact on the ground. So, the two sites that we were looking at today are really bad. The river bank is affecting business, as they can no longer get insured.”
Also read: JRA finally repairs water channel in Bromhof
JRA is currently is working on the erosion protection project on Gertrude Bridge. It is intended to reinforce a riverbank property. While the aim was erosion protection, residents believe that the work obstructed the natural flow of water, contributing to the recent severe floods.
“The situation on Gertrude has been a stop-start project due to poor planning and they started in the middle of the rainy season and arguably caused massive flooding in March. People are just generally very unhappy.”
Also read: Fixed CR Swart Drive brings mixed emotions
Kreusch confirmed that there are 68 critical bridges within Joburg that have been on the critical list for approximately five years.
“There are roughly 908 bridges in the city stock, and to the Mayor’s Dada Marero’s own admission, only 6% of that stock is in good condition, which means we’re in trouble.”
Questions were sent to JRA regarding the two bridges and the update will be published once made available.
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