How to fix crumbling Joburg: Host the Brics Summit

The Sandton CBD has not looked this good since the 2010 Fifa World Cup, a full 13 years ago.

The work began a few months back when much of Sandton Drive and West Street was resurfaced, even though major roads in the immediate vicinity (and the city’s region E) were – and are – in far worse condition.

The City of Joburg will likely claim that these projects were always ‘planned’, but the timing – just months before the Brics Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre – remains curious. 

Read: Nedbank, others team up with city to keep Sandton’s traffic flowing

Far less ‘coincidental’ has been the frenetic activity in Sandton in recent weeks. Every single pothole in the CBD has been repaired (yes, even the crater approaching Sandton Drive on William Nicol, which existed for months).  

The absurdity reached new levels in July when intersection pavement edges were repainted (to be fair, the paint had faded to the point where ‘painted’ is a far more accurate description).

Street names now grace each intersection – something Joburg residents haven’t seen for at least a decade.

Even Marie Avenue at the very bottom of Sandton Drive proudly carries its label. It matters not that about a hundred metres up that suburban road, a non-reinstatement of work done on a water leak a decade ago means a literal grass patch is growing in the street. 

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Road markings have been painted (not repainted, as these had disappeared long ago) throughout the Sandton CBD and all major approach routes. Grayston Drive, Rivonia Road, William Nicol, all of them … (who knew there were actually four lanes all along some of these stretches?). 

A ‘park’ – about as loose a term as one could use to describe the dusty corner at the intersection of Sandton Drive and William Nicol – had its barely-existent grass cut earlier this week. Sure, it’s winter, but a little more effort, please? (One cannot help but think that the Brazilians, Russians and Chinese would’ve laid fresh grass just for the occasion.) Here, we kind of neaten things up and make do. 

Traffic lights at every intersection in Sandton are working – an extremely rare occurrence. And if they don’t restore properly after load shedding, it appears that repair crews rush out to fix them.

During the power cuts, there are reports that the self-appointed pointsmen and women (mostly jobless/homeless) are absent from their usual haunts throughout Sandton. Instead, there are JMPD officers actually doing their jobs for once (not driving around and, bizarrely, stopping at the insistence of these ‘pointsmen’ as if all of this is completely normal). 

Vagrants and beggars are also no longer a roadside feature in the bubble, until Friday at least. 

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On Monday, City Power technical teams were painstakingly repairing every streetlight on William Nicol Drive. One presumes the glow from the Sandton CBD will be seen for miles (load shedding permitting) at night this week.

The FM’s Giulietta Talevi reports on the platform formerly known as Twitter that the streetlights on Jan Smuts Avenue are working for the first time in 18 months. This cannot be by chance!

Getting its act together?

Beyond Sandton, the R24 Albertina Sisulu corridor, a crumbling mess of a freeway to and from the continent’s second busiest airport, has for years not looked in as ‘good’ nick as it does currently. Perhaps the faded flag at the intersection of the R24 and N12 received a fresh lick of paint, although this is a stretch. Its restoration from sand and weeds in 2018 – five years ago – was largely privately funded (and executed). 

One wonders just how the City of Joburg has managed to get its act together. Is the metro’s alleged ‘de facto mayor’ (and Finance MMC) Dada Morero pulling the strings? Why can’t streetlights across Joburg just work? Why can’t potholes be repaired? (Instead, the Johannesburg Roads Agency relies heavily on a private initiative funded by two insurers.)

How can the city be capable of all of this now, yet incapable of it until now? 

OR Tambo International, the first thing foreign visitors see and experience upon arrival, remains a dingy, grimy, dark dump. But that doesn’t really matter to our foreign dignitaries who are whisked to VIP lounges from the apron in luxury German sedans – a topic for another day. 

Read/listen:
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For this week, though, driving through Sandton (and around much of northern Joburg) feels a little more like the ‘normal’ Joburg many residents and visitors remember. Maybe not the ‘world-class African city’ from the late 2000s, but much closer to that than its current state.

The sad truth is that within days/weeks/months, the mess, potholes, broken traffic lights and non-existent streetlights will all reappear in Sandton after the Brics Summit circus departs.

Why wouldn’t it? The rest of Joburg outside this temporary bubble exists in a permanent state of squalor.

Listen to this Property Pod episode with Suren Naidoo (or read the transcript here):

You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.