JRA faces over 400 cases of vandalised traffic lights
JRA urges residents to assist and report any infrastructure vandalism, as they are facing a growing trend of traffic lights being vandalised.
Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) acting head of Department for Mobility and Freight, Sipho Nhlapo, has confirmed that the municipal entity currently faces over 400 cases of vandalism and theft, with new incidents reported daily, such as the most recent cases in Region B along Dover Street and Main in Ferndale, and in Westbury.
He explained that the entity is overseeing a vast network of 2 023 signalised intersections, comprising over 16 000 poles, 100 000 LED bulbs, and 2 023 controller boxes.
“These components must always function seamlessly. The extent of damage varies, from cut poles to the removal of cables, significantly hampering operations. The backlog of repairs due to theft, vandalism, and accidents exceeds R70m, as per our 2025 records, placing significant strain on the entity’s maintenance budget.”
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Ferndale has become a hotspot area for traffic light vandalism, with over three poles vandalised on Dover Street and Main Avenue and in other nearby streets.
Nhlapho said copper cable is the most sought-after component, hence most of the traffic signals that are vandalised are to access the cables.
“Despite a moratorium issued by the National Treasury on the sale of second-hand copper cables, we still see an increase in this scourge. In the last four years, over 25% of the city’s traffic lights were vandalised.”
He confirmed that JRA spends about R25m per annum from its Capital Expenditure Budget to address vandalised and stolen traffic signals infrastructure city-wide.
“This harms the implementation of planned critical traffic signal upgrade projects and our maintenance efforts to improve our traffic signal network. The cost of rebuilding and repairing traffic lights at one major intersection can be as much as R1.5m.”
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He added that there isn’t sufficient budget to address the entire scourge of theft and vandalism. JRA’s 2025/26 Capital Budget for traffic signals projects, including upgrading 44 intersections city-wide, re-cabling of traffic signals, upgrading controllers, geometric improvements and alternative power sources, is just over R60m.
“The fight against vandalism, theft and illegal connections can only be curbed through active citizenry and community involvement, policing, and public awareness.”
JRA urged community members and road users to assist in combatting this scourge by reporting the perpetrators to the City of Johannesburg or reporting these criminal activities to the SAPS or JMPD.
“This will save the city and ratepayers huge amounts of lost revenue on replacement costs of vandalised and stolen traffic lights.”
City of Johannesburg Call Centre 0860 562 874.
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