Pretoria - The war against potholes will not be won any time soon, but efforts by the City of Tshwane’s roads and transport department to deal with the problem has been welcomed by the motoring public.
Municipal workers have been deployed to various roads to use asphalt to repair potholes after delays caused by recent rains and a strike by municipal workers.
MMC for roads and transport Dikeledi Selowa said the city was waging a war on potholes.
Workers this week have been patching potholes on the M44 in Mabopane, one of the city’s worse pothole-ridden roads.
The road is used by many commuters on a daily basis as it links Klipgat and Lebanon roads, both of which are also riddled with potholes.
Motorist Tshepo Mokoena said: “We appreciate seeing some workers (fixing potholes) on the road, but at this stage they are still just addressing less than 1% of the problem because these potholes have become worse.
“The problem is great and the City should do a lot more work, because with these rains it is almost like every pothole they don’t
get to fix grows deeper and wider every day.
“They (the potholes) are even damaging our cars because when it rains you think it’s just a wet road but you get surprised when your car hits the ground so hard,” Mokoena added.
Alfred Moswete said as long as the City was trying to fix the potholes the public would be grateful. However, the problem arose when they saw scores of potholes day after day, but hardly any maintenance taking place.
“It’s good to see municipal workers doing the work that needs to be done, but we also want to see the complete refurbishment of these roads because we believe that the roads are just too old for potholes to be repaired with patches.”
Selowa said workers were being deployed across the city on a daily basis to repair the potholes.
The Gauteng Department of Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure said it was also continuing its campaign to maintain provincial roads.
Pretoria News