JMPD to ease peak-hour traffic amid traffic light vandalism
Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero says the city is working with the city’s metro police to reduce traffic congestion caused by vandalised traffic lights.
Morero addressed the media in Johannesburg on Monday.
Morero says that despite the city’s efforts to fix broken traffic lights, the ongoing vandalism continues to cause them headaches.
“The technical challenge we continue to face on traffic lights is vandalism. You fix the traffic lights today, and three days later, it is back to square one. Either the SIM card has been stolen, or the copper has been stolen, and the traffic light has been cut at the bottom, which makes it now useless,” said Morero.
Morero added that the city is struggling to keep up with the costs of repairing traffic lights.
“JMPD has been deployed in key centres to ensure that there is no congestion from four o’clock until half past six. They are trying to push so that the congestion can be reduced,” said Morero.
The city is working with the private sector to increase security, especially at night.
“We have a proposed model that we are working on. We are just waiting for the teams to finalise. The model involves bringing on board private sector investments through advertising companies, and they can help us manage traffic lights better by putting their adverts in key centres and therefore invest in security and the upkeep of the traffic lights in key centres,” said Morero.
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