Lisa Isaacs
AUTHORITIES plan to close the Buttskop level crossing in Blackheath, the scene where 10 schoolchildren were killed in 2010 after a train rammed into their vehicle, due to safety concerns.
Details were not available, but Metrorail spokeswoman Riana Scott said the crossing would be eliminated in a project jointly funded by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and provincial government.
Ten children on their way to school in August 2010 were killed at the crossing when a minibus taxi and a train collided. Nine died on the scene and one later in hospital.
The driver of the taxi, Jacob Humphreys, was handed a 20-year jail sentence in 2012.
Scott said the crossing had since been marked by road signage, flashing lights, booms as well as a camera, catching defaulters.
She said the booms at this site had been damaged 367 times between 2010 and 2014 by motorists. The cost of a single boom is R2 000.
Siphesihle Dube, spokesman for Transport and Public Works MEC Donald Grant, said the provincial government looked to consolidate or eliminate level crossings altogether. He said plans were in place to develop proposals to also eliminate the Koelenhof/Elsenberg Military Road level crossings in Steenberg.
Road-over-rail bridges would be built where possible, he added.
Dube added that work was also under way to build a road-over-rail bridge at the Vlaeberg level crossing.
When the Cape Times visited the Buttskop site, most vehicles did not stop at the designated signs, instead speeding through the crossing. Flowers and crosses bearing the names of the victims still stand at the site.
Local security officer Gabriel Mudau said: “They don’t stop, they just drive through fast. If the beams are not completely down, they drive.”
Resident Neville Watson said taxis speed through the crossing, many carrying school pupils.
“I thought the accident would be a major wake-up call. But once everything calms down, it is back to square one,” he said.