South Africa’s richest city is collapsing for all to see

Johannesburg is suffering from a traffic signal crisis due to significant budget cuts, theft, and mismanagement, pushing the city to call for R70 million to fix this issue.

Joburg councillor and Roads and Transport Portfolio Committee member in the metro, Sean Kreusch, told Newzroom Afrika that urgent action is needed.

The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) said it needs R70 million to fix and attend to damaged and stolen traffic lights across the city. “It’s a very dire situation,” Kreusch said.

He explained that most people living in Joburg would have encountered many traffic lights that are not working, and some have been out of order for over a year.

Additionally, many of the UPS units installed to keep the lights on during power cuts have been stolen, smashed open, or damaged in a car accident. Only 15 of the 1,400 UPS units installed remain intact.

According to Kreusch, a significant reason for the traffic signal problem is the result of substantial budget cuts.

In 2016/2017, the JRA’s capital budget was roughly R1.4 billion. However, that decreased to only R859.65 million by 2023/2024. This means that in a period of 7 years, the JRA’s budget has decreased by nearly 60%.

These budget cuts affect maintenance and operational capacity since only around two to three teams are responsible for managing 2,000 signals.

“Coupled with that, the city has a road network of roughly 12,000 km. It was estimated that you would need to do 1,000 km per annum in order to maintain that network, and we’re only averaging 150 km to 180 km.”

“Signals have become a casualty of the financial restraints of the city.”

Kreusch explained that the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is facing significant challenges, particularly due to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the province and the city.

Under this agreement, the city is responsible for maintaining traffic poles on provincial roads, such as William Nicol Drive, the R511, Cedar Road, and Sandton Drive.

However, the provincial government has failed to pay the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) for this maintenance, resulting in a backlog of payments.

Additionally, the city is dealing with a shortage of spare parts, limited access to cabling, and restrictive regulations.

For instance, technicians responsible for repairing traffic signals cannot touch the power box unless an Eskom-qualified technician is present, as they lack the necessary wiring authority.

This creates further delays and complexities in restoring traffic signals. Notably, the city also has the highest pole-over rate in the country.

This includes poles that have been driven over by poor and drunk driving. “That is a regular occurrence in the city,” he said.

The issue comes with the fact that these traffic poles are insured, which means that they cannot simply be reinstalled once they have been driven over.

In fact, the poles are not even supposed to be touched until investigators have a chance to examine the scene.

Vandalism of traffic lights

Vandalism adds another layer of difficulty, with individuals deliberately switching off signal boxes to manually direct traffic.

While this behaviour is dangerous, Kreusch said that it highlights the desperation of commuters trying to navigate the city’s congested roads.

“It is a very complex situation. Vandalism, pole overs, abuse of traffic regulations. It’s really really dire at the moment.”

Kreusch added that this is not a new issue. “This has been ongoing. As a Committee Member since 2016, I’ve seen a gradual degradation of the quality of the signal management and maintenance.”

He explained that JRA reports indicate an 80-90% restatement rate of signals that are down, but this is not a true reflection of what is happening.

“JRA is only reporting on the functional signals that are working. So they will report on how quickly they repair the functional signals, but there is a huge gap.”

He estimated that there are around 500 signals that have just been left on the side of the road and ignored. “That is the stark reality.”

Unless there is strong leadership from the Metropolitan, the MMC of the city, and the mayor, he said that the issue is “just going to get worse.”

Although the JRA’s request for R70 may seem steep, Kreusch explained that it is a small price to pay to fix the problem at hand.

“Is R70 million that much? If it literally disempowers people within the city to get to work, I’m sure we can find R70 million somewhere. It just needs appetite.”

Johannesburg collapsing in front of everyone’s eyes

The traffic light problem is a broader symptom of the collapse of infrastructure and service delivery in South Africa’s wealthiest city.

Johannesburg’s water systems are on the brink of collapse, and urgent intervention is needed to avoid Day Zero.

The City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) water challenges are well documented, with sporadic water shortages hitting the city over the past few years.

As part of efforts to tackle the crisis of water leakages and infrastructure collapse, 12,100 kilometres of pipelines have been surveyed in Johannesburg. This revealed the below.

• 2,396 burst pipes
• 6,727 leaking meters
• 442 leaking valves
• 259 leaking fire hydrants

These issues have been flagged and are in the process of being repaired, with the potential to save the city 9,457 million litres of water annually.

More concerningly, however, is that of the city’s 80 reservoirs, around 42 are leaking, and only 11 are being repaired.

The city is also beset with crime and corruption, causing many businesses and rich households to leave for the Western Cape.

It is difficult to fight corruption as it has infiltrated most aspects of the city, including law enforcement.

In August 2024, Bloomberg reported that Johannesburg needed R221 billion to catch up on maintenance and overdue upgrades across its collapsing road, power and water networks.

It came at a time when regular power outages — the result of distribution network breakdowns — hit large swathes of Johannesburg.

Officials leave potholes unattended for months and parts of the city had no water for as long as 11 days in March.

The work pileup “highlights significant risks to public safety, economic safety and the environment if not addressed,” the city said of the road network in the documents.

“Ignoring the backlog could lead to deteriorating roads, unsafe bridges, flooding and increased accidents.”

Images of Johannesburg’s collapse