Traffic lights back on at Rivonia and Alon roads’ intersection
Ward councillor Lynda Shackleford works with Eskom and JRA to keep Sandton traffic lights in order.
A disgruntled Sandton local reported on social media that the recently fixed traffic light at the Alon Road and Rivonia intersection was once again out of order. Roland Lipman used the recently rebranded Twitter application on July 29 to alert Ward 103 councillor Lynda Shackleford, the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) and the City of Joburg to the situation.
“Rivonia and Alon roads’ traffic lights off again,” Lipman said. “[The traffic lights are] unfortunately not working again; please attend [to it, and] let’s not wait nine months.”
This was in response to Cllr Shackleford’s earlier tweet notifying her followers that the ‘traffic lights at Alon and Rivonia roads [in] Morningside are finally working again after 11 months due to cable fault’ thanking JRA and Eskom for their service in remedying the situation on July 22.
Shackleford cleared the air on August 3, shedding light on what has been happening with traffic lights in the abovementioned area.
“The Alon [and] Rivonia [roads] robot hadn’t been working for 11 months, the residents reported it. Eventually, it was brought to my attention: I re-escalated it to JRA,” Shackleford said. “JRA then let me know that there are fifteen robots in the Sandton area that are not working. Out of those, all of them are cable – and power – and that’s all to do with Eskom.”
According to Shackleford, the situation is once more under control.
“It was down the other day, but that was because of work happening in Ronmar Street. Thank goodness, I panicked that it was not going to be working again,” said Shackleford. “It went down for an afternoon, but it was due to another fault – not the actual robot. So, it is working, it has been working, I think it’s two and a half, three weeks now.”
Shackleford expressed the processes she follows to make sure that residents’ lives aren’t severely impacted by traffic lights being out of order, particularly given that traffic intersections are a shared responsibility between JRA and Eskom.
“It was the fault due to Eskom that they didn’t have power. At this stage, JRA sent me all the reference numbers, all the problems in all the different areas,” Shackelford elaborated. “To log a fault, with Eskom; you have to be an Eskom customer – I’m not. JRA has to follow a certain process. I have to always go to the customer service manager to log in on my behalf.”
According to Shackleford, reigning in the situation has been a team effort. “We’re working as a team now with Eskom to try and resolve the issues,” Shackleford concluded. “Unfortunately, Eskom is not a City of Joburg entity, so we have to follow their processes. As a ward councillor, I can only get to a certain point. But we push, and hopefully, we’ll get them all resolved.”
JRA spokesperson Bertha Scheepers confirmed that the intersection on Alon and Rivonia was once again operational.
“Our technical team inspected the intersection today and can confirm that traffic lights on Alon and Rivonia roads have power supply and are functioning,” said Scheepers.
Related article:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/330362/no-more-power-cuts-for-traffic-lights-in-sandton/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/331962/dangerous-traffic-intersections-in-morningside/
