80% of Johannesburg bridges in ‘imminent danger’ of collapse, says JRA

Four in five bridges in the country’s economic powerhouse are unsafe, with Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) admitting that the bridges are in “imminent danger of structural failure and require substantial renewal or upgrading”.

JRA told The Citizen out of 902 bridges in Johannesburg, 702 were in a poor or very poor condition.

This came after Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage revealed 25% of bridges were unsafe to cross.

80% of bridges unsafe to cross

Duvenage said the state of bridges and roads was due to lack of essential maintenance.

He blamed “poor leadership in the city – and more specifically the JRA”.

However, JRA said its biggest challenge for failing to maintain the bridges is because of limited funds, as per allocation per financial year.

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JRA said it uses a Visual Conditions Index (VCI) to categorise bridges and road conditions. The scale ranges from very good and good, to fair, poor or very poor.

The agency’s head of infrastructure planning, Musa Mkhacane, said very poor means an “asset is in imminent danger of structural failure and requires substantial renewal or upgrading with less than 10% of expected useful life (EUL) remaining”.

A list of 12 bridges that were categorised as very poor are in the areas of Roodepoort, Randburg, Lyndhurst, Buccleuch, Florida, Grobler Park, Ruimsig and different parts of Soweto, JRA said.

12 bridges categories as very poor

One of the taxi drivers operating in Johannesburg, Lungile Khumalo, said he had been driving for 25 years and used Main Reef Road in Florida on a daily basis.

“The last time these bridges and roads were fine was about 20 years ago. Ever since, they got ruined; they have never been fixed to look like they looked before.

“This was when we still had Highgate Shopping Mall,” he said.

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The mall was built in 1988 and is surrounded by areas such as Florida, Horseshoe and Riverlea.

Khumalo said he had incurred damage to his vehicle because of the state of the roads.

He said the last car accident he had was when he hit a pothole by the bridge and had to slow down. But because there was a car too close behind him, it ended up crashing into him.

Motorist experiences

“Ball joints are around R2 000, then tyres cost R1 500 and the side shaft bearings cost over R1 000 to fix,” Khumalo said.

Another motorist, Senzo Shezi, complained about the state of the roads which, he said, had massive potholes.

“When it rains, the water covers the potholes, which we end up driving into.”

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In 2016-17 financial year, JRA VCI data showed that 62% of the city’s bridges were in a poor state, while 16.6% of them were very bad. Since then, the numbers have increased exponentially.

Duvenage said there was money in the system, although it was being misallocated or misspent. “Authorities should be ensuring that we get the right prices and quality of road building done.

“We estimate that our municipalities and provinces pay three times the price we should for our roads. There are too many middlemen siphoning off the system,” Duvenage said.

‘Too many middlemen’ – Outa

However, Mkhacane said infrastructure “deteriorates overtime, thus it is true that the number will increase over time as well.

“Bridge rehabilitation has been happening over the years; therefore it is incorrect to suggest nothing has been done.”

Mkhacane said the safety precautions they had implemented were the closure of some bridges.

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There are currently four bridges that are closed: Pierre Road; Buccleuch Avenue; West Road; and Platina Road. They were awaiting finalisation of design and budget to rehabilitate or reconstruct.

A total of 23 are at risk of being closed, depending on further deterioration.

In the current financial year, over R240 million was reportedly required to rehabilitate 11 bridges by the City of Joburg.

Over R240m to rehabilitate 11 bridges

JRA’s 2024-25 capital expenditure budget is R795 million towards all road-related projects, excluding operational budget and daily maintenance work.

These include storm water upgrades, gravel road upgrades to surface standards, road resurfacing and reconstruction of damaged signalised intersections.

“The total budget is allocated towards urgent projects across the city’s road network and not limited to bridges.

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“At this stage, only R89.5 is million available for bridges in the current financial year,” said Mkhacane.

But Duvenage said the more funds that are allocated, the more JRA would waste them.

“We have weak oversight and irresponsible leadership at the JRA, who allowed this to happen in the first place.

Concerns about fund allocation

“And then no-one is held accountable. Everybody keeps their jobs and they pay themselves bonuses.

“It’s a seriously worrying situation. We will never get on top of the degradation of our road infrastructure,” Duvenage said.

Some of the bridges seen by The Citizen were completely vandalised, without street lights. Pipes could be seen protruding and others had turned into dumping sites.

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Mkhacane said it was important to contextualise a bridge rehabilitation process which “starts at the investigation and design stages of the project, associated consulting fees, and licence application fees [water use licence and other environmental authorisations]”.

“These processes can take months.

“The implementation of the project can only be undertaken when budget is available in that year,” Mkhacane said.