Following prolonged complaints from residents about traffic congestion and rising crime, the City of Tshwane has committed to repairing the malfunctioning traffic lights at the Tsamaya Road and Watloo intersection in Mamelodi, which have been inoperable for two years.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Roads and Transport, Tlangi Mogale, said the Metro has decided to assemble a team to assess the intersection following numerous concerns and complaints regarding traffic congestion during peak hours, at the location.

“This is one area that has been a big headache for us. We have decided with the team that they need to come and look at the intersection because we have been getting a lot of concerns and complaints around the intersection,” she said.

Mogale said the intersection has a high incidence of pedestrian knockdowns and accidents. “We agreed that, as a team, we are committed to come and sort out the issue of traffic signals because they have not been working for two years,” she said.

She said a thorough assessment was required before resolving the issue, adding that initial observations indicated that the intersection has been severely vandalised, with widespread theft and damage to essential infrastructure, including tampered power cables.

“There is an intersection live power cable that has been tampered with. There is also an issue of the control box that has also been tampered with,” she said.

She stressed that there was a need for the City to engage with the community to discuss ways to protect the municipal assets.

Mogale said her team was ready to take action and promised that in two weeks they will return with a solid plan in place to repair the traffic lights.

She said: “We are appealing to our community members to actually try to protect these assets.”

Lawrence Swanepoel, regional head for transport planning, explained that the initial step would be to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the damage at the intersection.

“Normally if the damages are small we would have come back and fixed it. This one, in terms of extent, is quite expensive and we will do a detailed assessment of what is needed and make a plan of what we are going to do and what the timeframes are,” he said.

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Community concerns prompt action on defective traffic lights in Mamelodi