Various pothole-riddled roads in Ward 89 were attended to on Wednesday, 4 March to make the roads safer for motorists.
The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) personnel declared ‘War on the Potholes’, an initiative by the new administration, during which they tackle tremendously worn-out roads in the area, including Panorama Drive, and Kapok and Kroton Streets in Constantia Kloof.
Ward 89 councillor Amelia Bester, who rolled up her sleeves and pushed around the vibratory plate compactor which creates a solid surface, shared her experience on being on the ground.
“By the time the trucks arrive with asphalt from the Booysens plant, it’s cold. The teams work as fast as possible to offload and fill the potholes, but half of the asphalt ends up too cold to use.”
“It’s a hard job being exposed to the elements without the luxury of ablutions,” she explained, advising that residents should keep workers’ dedication in mind before ‘snarling’ at them.
Amelia also explained that the project had to be executed in two days after one of the trucks had broken down en route, delaying the process.
While filling and patching these roads that are mainly ruined by underground water, Amelia strongly felt resurfacing them was the only solution.
“Over the past three budget cycles, I’ve asked that Kapok Street (mostly affected) be resurfaced. I’ve even had the former Regional MMC and JRA Ops Manager on site. I’m grateful that this has now been brought to the attention of the Mayor and the MD of JRA.”
While this War on Potholes seems like an appropriate initiative to eradicate potholes, Ward 95 and 113 DA councillor, Sean Kreusch, views the whole campaign as fiction.
“As much as this initiative is welcomed by the CoJ ratepayers, it seems more of a novel idea than a reality,” he said.
“Like many of the things you learn about war, the most important thing to remember [is to] have the capacity to deliver with the correct resources and skills. This unfortunately brings into question the City’s capacity to provide asphalt from the multi-million rand asphalt plant launched two years ago.
“The DA has learnt that this particular plant, although state of the art and quite capable of handling new and recycled road materials, is running drastically below capacity.”
“The result is that many of the regional JRA depots are left either with no or little materials to do patch-ups and fills. The other disturbing problem is that much of this material disappears and becomes unaccounted for,” Kreusch detailed.
He further implied that the DA has also learnt that the new plant is hamstrung by no maintenance contract that will allow the asphalt plant to be repaired and brought up to speed quickly.
“This lack of foresight is questionable and needs immediate remedy,” he said.
“To crown off the fact that resources seemed to be throttled at this plant, many of the depots are running below capacity with teams doing patch-ups and fills. These teams are stretched in terms of their workload and we can fully understand the slow pace at which potholes are filled.
“Again, we call on the ANC-led City of Johannesburg and the JRA to deal with this problem as a matter of urgency, and allow the ratepayers the right to have pothole-free roads that don’t create a danger to the road user.”
https://www.facebook.com/cllramelia.bester/videos/849359478913357/
