R21-million bridge is necessary – Municipality

The Johannesburg Roads Agency has said that the recently-approved R21-million project to reconstruct the Conrad Drive bridge, Blairgowrie, is necessary.

The reconstruction is to widen the bridge over the Braamfontein Spruit, to improve traffic flow and “increase in storm water capacity.”

The project is hoped to start toward the end of the 2015/16 financial year (by July 2016) (see previous article).

It was stimulated by a 1 000-signature petition to the City of Johannesburg, delivered by Member of Parliament Gordon Mackay (former Ward 90 councillor) and Ward 102 councillor David Potter, in 2010.

The roads agency’s spokesperson Bertha Peters-Scheepers said shortly after the project was approved by the City, that the agency is in a “pre-planning phase” of the project and no information provided is factual until it has been investigated and cleared.

However, the bridge is necessary, she said.

“Morning peaks and afternoon peaks create a bottleneck due to the road on either side of the bridge having four lanes – two in each direction and the bridge itself only having two lanes, one in each way, with restricted pedestrian manoeuvrability,” she said.

“This is a major east-west link that opens up the Randburg [and] Roodepoort areas as an alternative to Sandton, the financial hub of South Africa.”

When asked why so much money was needed for the project, Peters-Scheepers responded that “a conventional bridge of this magnitude is estimated to cost in the region of R40–60 million new, and this preliminary funding allocated to this project would not only be for the construction/widening of the bridge.”

She explained that the money would also go toward erosion problems near the bridge, which currently affect a pylon and business property.

“Furthermore, there is a possibility that this bridge could be listed as a heritage site, investigations/studies will tell, and this might have an impact on price, depending on the Heritage Foundation’s instructions to the City regarding either matching the existing or construction method to be used for the new section.” She would not comment on how wide the City wishes to make the bridge.

Details: Johannesburg Roads Agency hotline@jra.org.za, 011 298 5001.