Councillor’s Corner: How to apply for speed humps

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This week Phillip Brink from Robindale asks:

I have previously requested that the roads department put traffic bumps in Mulbarton Street, the reason being that vehicles tend to speed up and down this road, exceeding speed limits appropriate in residential areas, completely ignoring the fact that children visit the Playpark, strollers with dogs frequent the park and joggers run up or down road at all hours of the day. In addition, this stretch of road has concealed areas due to turns at strategic points, which resulted in a fatal accident last year.

Traffic up or down Mulbarton has increased due to motorists substituting the congested Malibongwe Drive for Mulbarton and vehicle repair shops even test cars and motorbikes after servicing them along this road.

How can we speed up doing this insignificant project urgently and make life bearable for all concerned residents?

Ward 99 councillor Nicole van Dyk answers:

Speeding is worryingly on the rise in many suburbs. In more and more instances, residents across the City of Johannesburg are seeking traffic calming measures. The process for application is not too difficult, and one only needs the following:

1. A letter of support from the ward councillor, which I will gladly supply

2. Scaled A2 engineering design drawing depicting the position of the proposed traffic calming humps

3. Metro police letter of support – which I shall happily obtain

4. Letter of support from the regional director’s office, in this case, the regional director of Region B.

All the above docs must then be submitted to Esther Schmidt from Traffic Engineering and Analysis on fax 011 298 5176 or email eschmidt@jra.org.za; her landline is 011 298 5230.

Once the traffic assessment has been done and if the report warrants the speed humps, a funding request will be made.

There have been cases of residents offering to fund the humps to assist the City’s funding, which mostly goes toward operational funding. One speed hump costs the city in the vicinity of R15 000.

Driver behaviour is, however, the issue to address. We can put speed humps and stop streets at every intersection, but if drivers don’t want to comply, they won’t. The City, as a whole, really needs to embark on a process of harsher punishments for speeding and reckless driving.

As stated previously, the Metro police presently only have enough resources to fight a total of 40 per cent of all infringements within their capacity. The addition of 1 500 new officers will ease this.

I would also advise putting up a sign that says the area has a high pedestrian level and more caution should be exercised.

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