January 16, 2003
By Thomas Thale
FOLLOWING numerous complaints from residents about cars speeding through their neighbourhoods, the City of Johannesburg has adopted a new policy intended to make the streets of residential areas safer for pedestrians and commuters.
Tabled at the last sitting of council in December, the policy provides for residents to petition the council to introduce traffic calming measures in areas where they are needed.
The new policy will see the City moderating traffic behaviour "through either physically doing something on the road or introducing legislative measures such as putting up new signs to reduce vehicle speed and vehicle volumes in order to change traffic patterns and driver behaviour".
The measures which will be considered to curb speeding include "road markings, speed checks, traffic signs, education process, speed humps, raised intersections, one way systems, chokers, chicanes and diagonal closures".
According to Franz von Moltke, coordinator of transportation for the City, the problem has been so serious that some desperate residents resorted to putting up illegal humps on their streets. Engineers from the JRA will look at these illegal barriers and try to have them formalised. "If, for instance, they are not painted but are in the right place, we could go back and paint them to make them legal," von Moltke explained.
The new policy will only govern class 4 and 5 roads - small streets in townships and suburbs - which handle low traffic volumes. These are "activity streets" which, von Moltke explains, "are for access and for use by people around their homes". The main arterial routes into and out of suburbs and main roads are not covered by the policy. These "mobility roads" are designed to facilitate the movement of cars.
William Cleinwerck, an engineer for the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), confirmed the agency has received thousands of complaints from all over the city concerning speeding cars. "It is a national problem. South Africans drive too fast." Complaints were lodged by a cross section of residents, including those from upmarket suburbs and townships.
But the JRA cannot consider many of these petitions favourably as they relate to main roads. "What we need on main roads is concerted law enforcement," Cleinwerck says.
These steps, says von Moltke, will make it possible for Joburgers to reclaim their streets and walk in their neighbourhoods without any fear of speeding cars.
