Avoidable damage to traffic lights costs Ekurhuleni millions
The city is trying to stay on top of road sign and traffic light maintenance, but budget constraints and the frequency of damage provides challenges.
The City of Ekurhuleni is concerned about the high costs of replacing traffic lights, which are mainly damaged through avoidable human actions such as vehicle accidents, theft and vandalism.
The city has already spent about R120m fixing and replacing traffic lights in the previous financial year ending in June 2022.
The city has decided that in some incidents, damaged traffic lights will be replaced with stop signs due to limited funds.
Although the installation of the stop signs is a temporary measure, some intersections may have the stop signs permanently.
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The permanent installation of stop signs will follow a process to de-warrant the traffic signal as per the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual (SARSM) which guides all decisions on traffic signals in the city.
The city 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.
Whilst routine scouting is done to identify faulty or missing traffic lights, residents are encouraged to inform the city through the call centre on 086 054 3000.
In total, there are 1 350 traffic lights in Ekurhuleni.
About 1 127 are maintained by the city and the remainder are maintained by the provincial government. In the event a traffic light belonging to the province is faulty, the matter is escalated for their intervention.
