SA’s roads crisis: 'The system is overwhelmed'

South Africa’s road infrastructure is on its last legs, with industry stakeholders warning the situation is taking a heavy toll on the economy by driving up transport and food prices, causing costly delays and damaging  vehicles and tyres.

These costs are ultimately borne by the consumer and the picture is set to get worse following torrential rains in Gauteng and other parts of the country.

Professor Yunus Ballim of Wits University’s school of civil and environmental engineering said heavy rains tested the limits of road infrastructure under normal circumstances.

But the past two weeks of downpours in Johannesburg, compounded by improperly maintained drainage channels and road culverts, are a major cause for concern.

“Asphalt roads are particularly prone to damage when rainwater gets into small but neglected areas where the road surface has cracked. The road layers below become saturated with water and passing vehicle traffic quickly turns this into a pothole that then grows as the rains persist,” said Ballim.

He said large parts of the concrete road infrastructure in Johannesburg were more than 70 years old and subject to a range of deterioration mechanisms, affecting both the concrete and the reinforcing steel.

On Thursday, the Johannesburg Roads Agency’s (JRA) acting CEO, Louis Nel, said a preliminary flood impact study — due to be finalised in mid-January — indicated urgent reconstruction work after the recent damage was likely to cost about R150m.

Road Freight Association CEO Gavin Kelly said the poor state of roads was hitting the public hard. “It’s driving inflation and pushing our products into a tougher position when competing on the international market,” he said.

The neglect of the road network created more wear and tear on vehicles – particularly suspension, tyres and chassis.

“This means more maintenance, more repairs, more frequent changing of tyres and suspension components - all in all, higher operating costs. Where operators may have got 50,000km out of a tyre in the past this has dropped to 30,000km.

“Poor roads affect delivery times – which impacts on vehicles being able to perform viable transport," Kelly said.

In some cases, when perishable goods were being transported extra vehicles had to ply the same route to ensure the products "are not left to rot due to misaligned or delayed logistical arrangements”, which pushed up costs. 

Mervyn Abrahams of the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group agreed: “As a general rule food is produced far from the table, so there are a lot of transport logistics, not just in terms of cost impacts on vehicles, but time too. And yes, that’s inconvenient, but [the costs] just get passed on down the chain and in the end it is the consumer who pays.”

Wayne Duvenage of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said motorists were being hit hard by the poor condition of roads.

“Potholes cause tyre damage and that’s a cost. And then your insurance premiums go up. They also cause accidents and even death as people swerve to avoid them. It’s the basic lack of service delivery that we see everywhere because of poor governance,” Duvenage said.

Potholes cause tyre damage and that’s a cost. And then your insurance premiums go up.

—  Wayne Duvenage of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse

The Institute of Risk Management South Africa has called for renewed private-sector pressure amid fears of widespread infrastructure collapse.

“The longer we let our infrastructure decline, the more likely it is that South Africa will become a failed state and fall into complete economic collapse,” said the institute’s CEO, Pat Semenya.

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering’s 2022 "Infrastructure Report Card" revealed the dire state of the country’s key infrastructure - including roads. 

The Sunday Times asked the three biggest metros what their greatest road infrastructure challenge was.

JOHANNESBURG

“The system is overwhelmed,” said Musa Mkhacane, head of planning at the JRA. More than half of all roads in the city needed some degree of rehabilitation.

The roads agency is  fixing 6,000 potholes a month at a cost of R1,200 a pothole.

This compares with two years ago when the rate was 4,000 potholes a month — but in the same period the cost per pothole has more than doubled, due mainly to the soaring price of materials.

Mkhacane said the work was done by about 560 staff based at the city’s seven depots, but there was a shortage of  200 workers which resulted in  backlogs — and the rain made the backlogs worse.

Johannesburg has 12,390km of surfaced roads and 1,168 km of gravel roads.

Mkhacane said the JRA’s budget was not nearly enough to keep existing roads in good condition, let alone build new ones. For financial 2022, the budget is R863m, one-third less than in 2016 when it was  R1.3bn.

Kwazelela Mcetywa, the road agency’s head of infrastructure development, said extending the lifespan of roads was a balancing act between proactive and reactive maintenance.

“Roads are built to last about 25 years but they deteriorate at different rates. Maintenance becomes more expensive the longer a road is left,” he said, adding that current needs, backlogs and costs were growing while budgets were declining.

An estimated R61bn was needed to upgrade the stormwater drain management system.

Muziwandile Nkonyane, head of regional operations at the agency said some roads, mainly in Soweto, had been built without stormwater drainage.

"Then you have people living in the stormwater drains and blocking them with their blankets. And we are seeing a changing of flood lines in places like Alexandra, where illegal dumping is blocking river courses and litter is blocking culverts.”

The city had 902 bridges, of which 16 needed repairs that would  cost R632m.

“Budget constraints don’t allow for contract workers to do proper assessments and so JRA teams are walking the roads and doing it themselves now. But they are deficient in skills and staff numbers so we are looking at upskilling and reskilling programmes to map things on a live document,” said Nkonyane.

Broken traffic lights are another endless source of frustration.

These are the domain of Sipho Nhlapo, acting head of mobility of freight at the JRA.

“Joburg has about 2,228 signalised intersections that ideally need to be synchronised but often are not because they are out of batteries or electricity,” Nhlapo said.

The main reason robots are often not working is load-shedding, but cable theft, heavy vibrations from overloaded trucks, lightning and short circuits caused by wet weather also contribute.

“When a robot goes out it will default to flashing and automatically register at the control room for repairs. They go dead in load-shedding and [after] cable theft.  We have made efforts to secure solar power, but thieves steal the UPS batteries,” Nhlapo said. 

Security measures were in place but thieves found ways to circumvent these.

Nhlapo said that at one intersection that had been repeatedly targeted the city set up a second camera to monitor the original security camera, which was failing to record the thefts.

“What we saw was a group of guys coming in with a ladder that they would hold steady while one guy would climb up and disable the camera. By not leaning the ladder on the pole they were able to bypass the motion sensors, and by disabling the camera they were able to steal the cables and control box before it could be picked up at the control room,” he said.

Theft and vandalism is also a huge problem in keeping Johannesburg’s 210,000 street lights burning

In 2020/2021, robot-related theft and vandalism cost R10.3m - the cost of repairing a vandalised intersection is almost as much as that of the original installation. 

According to Nhlapo, installing traffic lights at an intersection costs between R80,000 and R1.2m, with the average of R250,000. 

He said over the years several big intersections had been hit multiple times. A case in point was the R250,000 Wemmer Pan intersection, south of Johannesburg, that was hit and repaired  27 times before the JRA gave up. The robots were removed and it is now a three-way stop. 

“We are involved in some projects with private companies to have their large solar connections feed some of their excess power to robots. Research into alternative materials is under way to reduce vandalism and theft. Skills capacity is being addressed and a plan to future proof the system by 2024 is under way,” Nhlapo said.

Theft and vandalism is also a huge problem in keeping Johannesburg’s 210,000 street lights burning.

City spokesperson Nthatise Modingoane said  26,000 lights had been vandalised in Lenasia, Roodepoort, Soweto and Reuven, with Lenasia bearing the brunt. 

“Vandalism of our street lights is out of hand so we are developing a security strategy to address this. Most of the street lights are vandalised to enable criminal activities such as hijackings, robberies and housebreakings to happen in darkness." 

CAPE TOWN

In Cape Town vandalism and crime contribute to some of the city’s biggest problems. The stripping of electrical infrastructure across the metro has plunged some roads in known crime hotspots into darkness at night – and the cost of repeated repairs is draining city coffers.

More than R50m was spent in financial 2022  to fix vandalised electrical infrastructure, including  street lights and traffic signals. The city has budgeted R40m this financial year to curb and prevent vandalism of critical electrical infrastructure.

Beverley van Reenen, mayoral committee member for energy, said street lights were targeted across the metro.

“Constant repair of the same vandalised infrastructure is not feasible and unfortunately places significant pressure on city resources. This negatively affects our residents, who experience insufficient street lighting in areas where reccurring incidents take place,” she said.

Van Reenen said 122 cases of electrical infrastructure vandalism and illegal connections were recorded between July and September.

Councillor Rob Quintas, mayoral committee member for urban mobility, said most of the road and infrastructure budget was spent on repairs and the upkeep of the city’s 10,700km road network: “Repairs to roads, stormwater infrastructure such as inlets next to the roads, bridges that fall under our management, signage, road markings and so forth.”

Potholes were repaired after being reported but he said the number of complaints did not necessarily reflect the actual number of potholes

Quintas said a combination of factors placed additional strain on road infrastructure.

“Unfortunately, given the implosion of passenger rail, the city has seen a huge increase in the number of people now making use of road transport, be it private vehicles, minibus taxis or buses.

“All of these failures on a national level put a lot of strain on the city in terms of the budget and human resources needed to maintain our road network," he said. The repair and maintenance budget for financial 2023 was R688m.

“In addition, the city has seen immense population growth over the past 15 years or so.”

Potholes were repaired after being reported but he said the number of complaints did not necessarily reflect the actual number of potholes.

“It is very difficult to draw inferences as to the trends as we had a slowdown in reporting during the Covid-19 lockdown. Over the past financial year we have received more than 39,000 complaints for potholes.

“The city strives to make a pothole safe within 24 hours of it being reported. A permanent repair will be made within 15 days, weather permitting. Water is the No 1 cause of potholes and other damage to our road infrastructure.

"The dumping of waste in storm water mains and sewers leads to blockages and overflows onto roads. Thus, residents can help us protect roads by not dumping waste in the stormwater inlets and sewers.”

DURBAN

Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the devastating floods that hit KwaZulu-Natal this year had derailed several road maintenance plans.

“Roads are attended to and several contracts have been awarded for maintenance work.  Two consecutive floods that hit the city derailed quite a number of the city’s plans.

"It is therefore very unfair to expect the city to return the situation to normalcy with speed under these circumstances,” Mayisela said.

He said the city was dealing with several challenges, including cable theft, small budgets and its own internal resources remaining unchanged for 15 years.

In broad daylight, copper thieves stole cabling and other components from 400 street lights, each 18m tall,  at the N2/M41 Mount Edgecombe interchange.

The South African National Roads Agency’s electrical project manager in the eastern region, Zakhele Mthethwa, said the cost of repairs was estimated at R50m and they should be completed in 2025.

DA eThekwini councillor Yogis Govender said Durban residents could expect to continue driving in the dark and wrecking their tyres unless the city could come up with  more than R200m to fix about 40,000 street lights and 3,000 potholes.

Mayisela said about 80% of reported potholes were fixed every month.

“We receive insurance claims over potholes and they are assessed to check who was at fault," he said. The council paid out  where necessary and tried to implement  measures to prevent a reoccurrence.