The Executive Mayor Dan Plato, joined by Mayoral Committee Member for Transport Alderman Felicity Purchase, visited the city’s roads team in Morningstar Durbanville today as they ramp up efforts to repair potholes created during the rainy season. Since June, 10 186 potholes have been fixed, indicating the early impact of the wet weather and the reduced capacity as a result of the national lockdown on our maintenance. This event follows last week’s launch aimed at sharpening service delivery efforts and improving the quality of roads in various areas across the city.
‘Cape Town is making good progress to clear the backlog of pothole repairs created by reduced capacity as a result of the national lockdown restrictions. The pothole repair campaign is now well underway, but I am personally visiting the road teams on duty to check on the progress of the work. Our city is known for its excellent service delivery and we pride ourselves on this. This campaign is to demonstrate how we are working towards optimal levels of action and efficiency. Our city experienced one of the rainiest seasons in recent years, which hindered preventative maintenance. We are working flat-out to get back-on-track,’ said Executive Mayor Dan Plato.
Operating capacity of depot staff reached 70% from 1 October. Under Alert Level 5, road maintenance teams were not deemed essential services so were not able to carry out preventative road maintenance prior to the rainy season. This meant staff had to play catch up once work was able to resume, but with reduced capacity to adhere to the regulations.
‘It is encouraging to see our teams hard at work, ensuring that we live up to our commitment to deliver excellent basic service that will see Cape Town’s roads, streets and sidewalks well maintained and ultimately free of potholes. We are not at 100% capacity yet, but are making steady progress ahead of the festive season,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Alderman Felicity Purchase.
Currently, the teams are working with an external contractor on eradicating a backlog of more than 500 outstanding pothole notifications in the Kraaifontein, Brackenfell, Durbanville, and Bellville (above N1) areas. Together, these areas have a road network of approximately 1 500km.
‘Due to the large backlog, the district is divided into eight work areas that have been allocated to different depot teams and contractors. The eradication programme commenced on 5 October 2020 and we have managed to fix more than 50% of the reported pothole notifications in the northern district within the first month. This amounts to more than 500 potholes repaired thus far in areas like Wallacedene, Bloekombos, Kraaifontein and Durbanville with areas in Bellville and Brackenfell to follow,’ said Alderman Purchase.
City wide, the City’s Road Department has repaired:
- 2 776 potholes during the five-month period January 2020 until the end of May 2020
- 10 186 potholes during the five-month period 1 June 2020 until the end of October 2020
Additional steps to address backlog:
- The Directorate is implementing recovery plans to eradicate a road maintenance backlog brought on by the COVID-19 national lockdown and winter rains.
- Assessing service requests from residents over the past few months. From this a programme for each district area has been developed and is being rolled out.
- Increasing the capacity of the staff at City Depots as the restriction levels allow. The City has employed the services of four external contractors to help with the backlog.
The city-wide maintenance work is scheduled to take place until April 2021.
The formation of potholes during the colder months is a common occurrence as it is linked to the heavy rainfall and age and state of the roads. With warmer weather conditions on its way, and the relaxation of lockdown restrictions, we can now intensify our efforts. Water is the main cause of potholes. However, potholes can also form due to diesel spillage, vehicle collisions, fires, and inadequate road drainage. In addition to pothole-fixing, we are also soon embarking on a clean-up campaign to remind residents of the importance of working with us to keep areas neat and tidy.
Residents should also be mindful that teams often carry out temporary repairs on potholes until favorable, drier weather conditions enable a more permanent repair. Temporary repairs consist of filling in the pothole with ‘coldmix’, while the permanent repair requires cutting the existing road surface around the pothole, preparing the base, applying tack coat to the prepared base course and finally placing the hot premix. Permanent repairs will not be effective when a road or the layers underneath the road still contain moisture.
Residents can report potholes to the Transport Information Centre on 080 065 6463. This is a 24/7 information centre and is toll-free from a landline or a cell phone.
Alternatively, a mail can be sent to Transport.Info@capetown.gov.za.
You can also send a WhatsApp to 063 407 3699, or contact our Customer Call Centre on 0860 103 089.