Saxonwold residents are in the process of collecting evidence of accidents at the intersection of Cotswold and Saxonwold drives so they can apply for traffic calming measures.
The intersection, where numerous accidents have occurred, has a large traffic volume of vehicles travelling between Jan Smuts Avenue and Oxford Road.
Before a traffic engineer from the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) can assess whether or not traffic calming measures are necessary an application will need to be submitted.
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The application requires the ward councillor’s support and approval, a scaled A2 engineering design drawing of the proposed traffic calming measures, a letter of support from the City of Johannesburg’s regional director’s office and a letter of support from the Metro police.
Bertha Peters-Scheepers, the spokesperson for the JRA said, “On receipt of the formal petition, JRA traffic engineers will then conduct a study at the intersection to determine whether the request is warranted for traffic calming and if so how these could be implemented.”
It will also need to be determined if there is anything which would prevent traffic calming measures from being put in place. There cannot be any traffic calming measures constructed in front of an entrance, on a gravel road, in the shade of trees during the day and where there is no street lighting at night, among others.
Traffic calming measures that are usually implemented are either speed bumps, raised pedestrian crossings and minicircles.
Resident Rene Kilner, who has taken responsibility for collecting the necessary information, explained that motorists stopped at the stop sign on Saxonwold Drive need to come out quite far into the road to see cars coming down Cotswold Drive. “I think what also happens is people don’t necessarily see the stop sign [on Saxonwold Drive] so they go through [the intersection] and people come barrelling down the road [Cotswold Drive].
Tim Truluck, councillor for Ward 117, which includes Saxonwold, said even if the JRA approved the application for traffic calming, the residents would need to find the funding themselves. “The last I heard it was about R15 000 for a speed bump and between R90 000 and R120 000 for a traffic circle.
“If [residents] want the City to fund it then they join a long queue of hundreds of similar applications dating back years.”
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