The City of Ekurhuleni has announced that going forward, it will replace damaged traffic lights with stop signs in certain areas under its jurisdiction due to limited funds for maintenance and repairs.
The metro is situated in the East Rand region of Gauteng and consists of populous areas such as Alberton, Bedfordview, Benoni, Boksburg, Brakpan, Edenvale, Nigel, and Tembisa – home to roughly four million residents.
R120 million spent on easily avoidable damages
In the previous financial year ended June 2022, the City of Ekurhuleni spent in the region of R120 million on fixing and replacing faulty or stolen traffic signals.
It noted that the high cost of doing so has become unsustainable and that the damages mainly arose from avoidable human actions such as vehicle accidents, theft, and vandalism – leading to the decision to install stop signs rather than new traffic signals in affected areas.
“Although the installation of the stop signs is a temporary measure, some intersections may have the stop signs permanently,” said the City.
“The permanent installation thereof will follow a process to di-warrant the traffic signal as per the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual which guides all decisions on traffic signals in the City.”
In total, there are 1,350 traffic lights in Ekurhuleni, with about 1,127 of these being maintained by the City and the remainder by the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG).
For those under the purview of the Ekurhuleni municipality, it will continue to “adhere to the 24-hour turnaround time for attending to faulty or damaged road signals to ensure smooth and safe movement of motorists,” it said.
In the event a traffic light belonging to the province is reported to be faulty, Ekurhuleni will escalate the matter to the GPG for its intervention.
Whilst routine scouting is done to identify faulty or missing traffic lights, residents are still encouraged to inform the City of these issues when they encounter them through the call centre on 086 054 3000.
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