The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) admitted during a public meeting held at Ruimsig Stadium on August 15, that they do not have the budget available for the reconstruction of the now notorious Sjampanje Street bridge.
The bridge was closed to traffic after a heavy rainstorm in December 2023 resulted in damage to a concrete culvert, compromising the structural integrity of the bridge in question.
The Roodepoort Northsider has reported on the bridge numerous times since and each time, the answer from JRA was the same; the bridge is to remain closed until further notice.
Meanwhile, inadequate road closure measures resulted in vehicles, delivery motorcycles and pedestrians simply skirting past the obstructions placed on the road. This resulted in numerous accidents, some of them serious.
JRA eventually upped measures to keep the road closed, but pedestrians and bike-delivery drivers still manage to avoid these.
The meeting was opened by Ward 97 councillor Jacques Hoon, who emphasised that JRA is attending to road infrastructure challenges in the ward, within the means available to them.
JRAs regional operations manager for stakeholder engagement in Region C, Nokothula Ngema, took over from Hoon, outlining what the entity is doing to address long outstanding service requests, and to prioritise areas of concern on roads within the ward.
Ngema issued a stern warning to all road users that the bridge in Sjampanje Street is structurally compromised and poses a very real danger to anyone who disregards the road closure measures.
“An engineer’s report has concluded that the structural integrity of the bridge is compromised,” she says. “Yet, during our walkabout in the area earlier in the week, we witnessed several people simply disregarding the road closure and accessing the bridge.
“People do not realise the danger they are in when accessing the bridge. It may look fairly secure on the surface, but I assure you it is not.”
Ngema added that accessing the bridge whether by car, motorcycle or on foot, is illegal.
New designs received:
Ngema says that the entity has received technical plans for the reconstruction of the bridge and that the necessary environmental assessments are being carried out.
“We are expecting the environmental approvals within about the next month,” she says.
“Unfortunately, even with the designs and environmental authorisations, we do not have the budget available for this project within the current financial year.”
She added that the matter may be revisited during the mid-term budget review in December, but emphasised that there is no guarantee that the budget will be made available.
“Sjampanje Street is a pressing matter for JRA. We receive many calls and complaints about it, and we will be pushing for it, but at this stage, there is no guarantee that it will be approved.”
Alternatively, the allocation of funds for the reconstruction of the bridge will likely only be addressed in the next financial year.
