The Executive Mayor of Tshwane Cilliers Brink, joined by the MMC for Roads and Transport, Katlego Mathebe, embarked on an oversight visit to three major road rehabilitation projects currently underway in region 6, namely Mamelodi, Nellmapius and Lynwood on Wednesday morning.
The oversight visits begin in Mamelodi where a R20 million road rehabilitation project to improve the lifespan and standard of the roads is in progress.
The project entails the removal of old asphalt and replacing it with a new layer and is expected to be completed by the end of May 2024.
The Mayor and the MMC also visited the Nellmapius Taxi Rank to hand over a cost-effective ablution facility that will improve the conditions at the taxi rank.
The last stop was at Lynnwood Road, where work was underway for a dual
carriageway intersection at Lynnwood and Meerlust Road.
City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink embarked on an oversight visit to three areas in the Metro’s Region 6, namely Mamelodi, Nellmapius and Lynwood on Wednesday morning.
In Mamelodi East, Brink visited a road rehabilitation project worth R20 million in J Maleleku Street and said he was very pleased with the workmanship being done on the rehabilitation of the road.
“Unfortunately, we can’t resurface every road at the same time but have to prioritise main routes as we have a system in place as the city to ensure that our priorities are implemented,” said Brink.
“I am delighted by what I saw in Mamelodi; good workmanship, quick work, good planning and good execution on the road resurfacing project,” said Brink.
MMC for Roads and Transport Katlego Mathebe who had accompanied the mayor, said the city has a database of all the roads; the state of the roads, when last they were maintained and the class of road so as to know what kind of maintenance is required on each road.
A resident of Mahube Valley where the dilapidated J Maleleku Road is situated, told Tshwane Talks that it is a relief to see that the municipality has finally decided to rehabilitate the road.
“The road was so dilapidated to the extent that some residents even took the initiative of patching it up themselves, this as the road has been in a mess for over 15 years now.
“J. Maleku Road is a one of the major roads in our Ward and it is used by buses, taxis and pedestrians,” he said.
At the Nellmapius taxi rank, MMC Katlego Mathebe expressed satisfaction regarding the building of a R400 000 new ablution facility.
“Many of our taxi ranks have dilapidated, old ablution facilities and because we care about the dignity of our people, we designed a prototype ablution facility which will be rolled out to other taxi ranks in the near future,” said Mathebe.
Mamelodi Amalgamated Taxi Association (MATA) chairperson Ben Maredi said the following:
“We as the taxi industry are very happy and proud about what the City of Tshwane is doing for us in terms of the ablution facility and we are really looking forward to continue working together with the municipality, going forward,” he said.
Maredi revealed that together with officials of the City like Messrs Nyathi, Pheko and Shayi, MATA has already worked on several initiatives with the city and received much-needed help from the Metro every time.
In Lynwood, project manager of the road resurfacing initiative Werner Bruhns said the quality of work done on the Lynwood is of very good quality and thanked developers and engineers for their good work.
He revealed that the project entailed upgrading intersections on both sides of Lynwood Road, extension of Meerlust Road and the building of a new carriage way that stretches right onto Solomon Mahlangu Road.
“Here at Lynwood the achievement is quite remarkable as we have partnered with the developer to extend Lynwood Road and ease congestion on the road,” said Brink.
“There will now be far better movement coming from Mamelodi to the Centre of Pretoria and back to Silver lakes and so forth,” he said.
“What is also really exciting about this project is that the developer has signed up for our Adopt-a Traffick light scheme so that when there is loadshedding the traffic light gets connected to their power supply, preventing loadshedding from affecting traffic flow and disrupting the lives of the residents,” said Brink.
The Lynwood project cost R24 million.