FOLLOWING a number of reports about traffic lights not working for various technical reasons or accidents or theft, the COURIER travelled the South to look into the progress being made in repairing traffic lights.
Dysfunctional traffic lights continue to slow down traffic in the South and the Alberton area, in particular towards Alberton City, where traffic lights have been on the blink for more than two days, causing slow-moving traffic during peak hours for motorists travelling to or from the South via Heidelberg Road.
During the drive, on Tuesday, April 5, the COURIER found that traffic lights were knocked down at corner Quantock and Southern Klipriviersberg Road, South Hills, corner South Rand Road and Johan Meyer Street, Linmeyer, and corner South Rand Road and Heidelberg Road, Tulisa Park.
The COURIER will alert the Johannesburg Road Agency about this to help the agency quickly attend to these spots and help make traffic flow quicker. The COURIER also reported about the agency using technologies to fix blinking traffic lights in the City of Johannesburg municipality routes.
Technology will, according to JRA, diminish the frustration of road users while minimising the economic impact caused by congestion in a city that has, by far, the largest city road network (13 428km) and 1.669-million licensed vehicle owners.
Heavy rains in the city, often accompanied by lightning, have caused these temporary power outages and faulty traffic lights, according to JRA. Although wet weather is no longer the primary cause for traffic signals going on the blink, vandalism and power outages are the JRA’s biggest concerns, particularly as these are both beyond the entity’s control.
Please communicate with the COURIER on what you think the City or JRA can do to deal with these challenges or send the locations of intersections with blinking or damaged traffic lights by sending an email to jamesm@caxton.co.za.
