Crossing Malibongwe Drive is unsafe and an ‘absolute nightmare’
The controller box at one of the traffic lights was also stolen at one point.
Crossing the road is hard enough when you are on crutches, but even more so when the traffic lights have not worked in months.
Even when he is driving, Northwold resident Robert Garbers finds Malibongwe Drive an ‘absolute nightmare’. The traffic lights are almost always out on three intersections in Northwold, Sharonlea and North Riding.
These are where Malibongwe Drive meets Olievenhout Avenue/Bellairs Drive, 2nd Street/Mahogany Street and President Fouché Road.
“Of course, the pedestrian crossing button does not work, and drivers won’t even stop at the lights,” Garbers lamented. “They have no patience and just drive right through. It is not safe at all.”
He is not the only frustrated member of the community. Greater Sharonlea Residents Forum chairperson JC Wouters said the traffic lights on Mahogany Street have been out since March. “Schoolchildren cross the road in the mornings and afternoons and it is not safe as taxis coming down Malibongwe take the turning lane but drive on straight anyway,” he said.
The controller box for the traffic lights at this corner was also stolen at one point, and Wouters reported this to the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport, which manages Malibongwe Drive and its traffic lights.
Ward 101 councillor Ralf Bittkau has a more cynical view: that the homeless men who sometimes direct traffic when the lights are out are purposefully disabling the traffic lights or stealing their controller boxes to keep them off.
“When the red lights flash it means the controller boxes were disabled. When the lights are off, they have been removed completely. We have seen both happen,” Bittkau said.
Bittkau and Wouters said they have been reporting the matter to the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport for months without any feedback.
Questions were sent to the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport on August 10, as to why the traffic lights have been out so frequently; why they have not been repaired yet and when they will be. These have been acknowledged but no comment was received by the time of going to print.
Related Article:
