Driving dangerously as majority of traffic lights in city not working
A random sample test was conducted on 134 traffic lights and 44 were found to be offline or damaged.
Traffic is a nightmare that anyone living or working in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg must face daily on every commute. Damaged traffic lights are the primary cause of the endless frustration.
Be it through load-shedding, vandalism, theft or aging infrastructure, JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla recently confirmed that “The majority of traffic lights in the city are either not working or are malfunctioning. This has led to heavy traffic congestion during peak hour periods in the morning and afternoon.”
Northcliff Melville Times tracked several legitimate trips around the city on March 27 for random samples of traffic light functionality. Load-shedding stages 2 and 3 were in effect on the day.
In total, 155 traffic lights were sampled.
-> 74 were working
-> 61 were not working
Why lights were out:
-> 29 were broken
-> 46 were not working due to load-shedding*
-> 3 were cut for cable theft
-> 3 were missing altogether
* It is unclear how many of these returned to service after load-shedding.
Fihla said JMPD officers cannot be at every corner and every intersection. With the assistance of Traffic Free Flow sponsored by Outsurance, main arterials, heavily congested and major routes are prioritised.
“We urge motorists to adhere to and obey the rules of the road at all times. Where there are no points people, please treat those intersections as compulsory stops.”
Fihla encouraged the reporting of any problems with traffic lights‚ cable theft‚ vandalism, traffic violations, gridlocked areas or illegal pointsmen. This can be done by calling the City of Johannesburg’s emergency number 011 375 5911 or the JMPD emergency number 011 758 9624.
Northcliff Melville Times contacted Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), the entity responsible for ensuring that traffic lights are in working order, on March 28 and 29 with a list of questions to be answered for this article. No response was received. They included:
1. Please can you provide an overview of the status of traffic lights in the city?
2. What plans does JRA have to improve the working of traffic lights going forward?
3. When a traffic light is reported as malfunctioning or offline – are there any guidelines on how long it is anticipated to take for a repair to happen?
4. What role does load-shedding have in making traffic lights malfunction or go offline?
5. Is there any plan to perhaps get traffic lights to operate using solar power to avoid large areas of the city from not having traffic lights during load-shedding?
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