Motorists say they are growing increasingly frustrated at the state of the City of Ekurhuleni’s roads, which are riddled with dangerous potholes that are damaging their vehicles.
Drivers, who spoke to The Advertiser, said they encounter dozens of potholes on their standard daily trips to work while many others were concerned that not more was being done about potholes, reckoning the problem was only going to get worse.
Motorists complained that they have repeatedly experienced vehicle damages as a result of the hazardous driving conditions brought by potholes and cracked roads.
Major roads which are in a particularly bad state in Boksburg include Paul Smit, All Black, Atlas, North Rand, Main Reef, Pretoria, Wit Deep, Field and many others connecting some of the City’s industrial hubs.
Watch out for potholes
After being inundated with complaints from readers, this publication visited one of the most affected areas: Paul Smit Street near Turf Road in Andebolt.
This stretch of road near the traffic lights is filled with multiple potholes, forcing motorists to drive on the sides of the road with others even swerving into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting the multiplying holes. Some of the holes are right in the middle of the road and it is hard to avoid them as the road has become narrow because of the growing defects.
Drivers, who work in and around the area, claimed that the defects to the road surface were reported to the metro numerous times since last year.
They said apart from being safety risks, the potholes are a financial burden to motorists as many drivers have had to buy new tyres after their wheels had gone into the potholes.
“I use this road to travel to work and back home and I have to navigate around these suspension-destroying potholes every single day. I had already hit the potholes a couple of times.” said motorist Marieta Engelbrecht.
Another road user Esmarie Prinsloo, who works for a security company in the area, said she had been in several near-miss incidents in the last few months as she swerved away from the potholes and also avoided crashing into delivery trucks.
Shaun Holtzhausen, who operates a business next to the potholes, said he has been witnessing motorists continuously negotiate their way around the potholes on the road for more than five months now. He called on the council to do something regarding the conditions of all the roads in town because they are hurting businesses.
“We have tried several times to report the matter to the metro, but nothing has happened,” said Holtzhausen.
Residents take action
In Boksburg, residents who have grown tired of waiting for local authorities to repair the roads, resorted to taking matters into their own hands and repairing the road defects. They feel the problem was being ignored by the council.
Some of the community members who took it upon themselves to address the potholes on the City’s roads put broken bricks followed by sand or concrete and limestones to fill them up, as a temporary solution to avoid potentially fatal accidents or damages to peoples’ vehicles.
To reflect the deep frustration that people have with the roads, social media users took to Facebook pages where they posted photos highlighting cracks and craters in the decaying City’s roads.
The Advertiser has reached out to the metro for comment and to find out whether residents were allowed to repair potholes or if they need to apply for permission to do any form of roadwork, including filling up potholes on the City’s roads. However, no response was received at the time of compiling this report.
Budget constraints
Early this year, the metro said council was trying to help by carrying out regular repairs, but the department encountered budget constraints to deal with the maintenance backlog created over the past couple of months by bad weather, which in turn left them having to prioritise repair works for main priority roads.
The budget constraints had limited the number of repair work the roads department had been able to undertake, however, the municipality told the Advertiser that plans were being made to find the money to tackle the pothole problem, saying it remained optimistic that more money would be subsequently made available to deal with the issue.
Officials pointed out that the maintenance backlog prompted the City to come up with a catch-up plan aimed at addressing the barrage of potholes caused by weather conditions including the continuous rain.
The catch-up plan entailed creating a priority list of roads riddled with bad potholes and fixing the road defects, and at the top of the plan were the main priority roads and those mostly used by motorists.
The City said its teams had between December and now patched thousands of potholes on the roads across the metro.
Roads maintenance a key priority
In an exclusive interview with this publication on March 30, the Ekurhuleni mayor, Tania Campbell, said the new administration was on a course to turn things around as far as road maintenance is concerned; but that remains to be seen whether or not it will materialise.
She said maintaining the City’s road network is among the multi-party coalition government’s key priorities, and the council has already allocated financial resources to and Roads and Stormwater Department to support an enhanced maintenance programme for the City’s roads.
“Our biggest challenge was financing. What we have found is that the budget that was allocated to the department from the previous administration was of a minimum amount. So, in our adjustment budget, we have moved money into the roads department to start tackling the potholes, but there is a lot that still needs to be done.
“With the new budget coming mid-year, we have also prioritised money for that specifically,” said Campbell.
Planned projects: In her March State of the City Address, Campbell said 80km of road will be rehabilitated, and the department will chip away at the 1 200km in gravel roads upgrade in the next financial year.
“The Roads and Stormwater Department will, among others, aim for the completion of the Daveyton/N12 interchange by the end of the next financial year.
“The construction of a 13km dual carriageway to replace the current Barry Marais Road that runs from Vosloorus to the N17 at Carnival City is targeted for completion before the 2026 end of the political term.”
Report it
Residents can report road defects or complain as follows:
Call centre: 0860 543 000
Twitter: @CoE_Call_Centre
Email: call.centre@ekurhuleni.gov.za
Via My CoE App
Upon reporting a pothole, the individual logging the request will be provided with a reference number that they can use for follow-up purposes.
Have you fallen victim to a pothole recently? Please share your experience by leaving a comment below.
Also Read: Potholes: Tell us what’s on your mind
Also Read: The dreaded pothole – it is everywhere?
