City spends R189m on 28 new fire engines
THE CITY of Joburg has purchased 28 new, state-of-theart fire engines, one for each fire station, at a total cost of R189 million and will employ an additional 160 firefighters to enhance the capacity of its Emergency Management Services (EMS).
Member of the mayoral committee for public safety Michael Sun said the acquisition of the new and technologically advanced fire engines and the employment of additional firefighters, both of which he described as “long overdue”, would significantly improve EMS response times.
Sun said the delivery of the newly procured fire engines was expected to take place between the end of this month and October.
He said some of the existing fleet of fire engines, certain of which were more than 30 years old, would not be discarded, but would be taken in for comprehensive repairs and proper maintenance.
“Only until we have good quality and mechanically sound fire engines will we be able to improve our turnaround times. We have also started looking at other ways of maintaining the old fleet.
“We want to retain them as back-up vehicles. We could refurbish those that are maintainable, so that we always have spare vehicles to respond to emergencies.”
On the recruitment of the additional 160 firefighters, Sun said he would ensure that the men and women were extensively trained to rescue people from hazardous situations.
Earlier this year, mayor Herman Mashaba announced that the city would beef up the Joburg metro police department by recruiting an extra 1 500 officers.
JOE KEEPILWE WRITES:
We, the residents of Bramley Gardens, had a residents’ meeting and we agreed to write to you to see if you could find out why the entrance to Silwood Road was closed by road construction. We have to travel about 1km to make a U-turn to face the north.
This is unfair to us, the 80 residents.
THE JOHANNESBURG DEVELOPMENT AGENCY REPLIES:
The right-turning movement volumes at the gap in the median at Louis Botha Avenue and Silwood Road at peak hours is low, especially when compared to the Corlett Drive and Grenville/Newick intersections.
It should also be noted that vehicles performing the rightturn manoeuvre, be it from the north or the south, are blocking one of the through lanes along Louis Botha while waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic.
The city’s decision to give priority to public transport, in particular Phase 1C of the Rea Vaya bus route, means that it has approved the BRT implementation plan of rightturn access at approximately 1km intervals. As a consequence and because of the traffic conditions along the BRT corridor, it is not possible to provide controlled breaks in the median. This is mainly for safety reasons, but also to comply with the Road Traffic Act. It is also not safe to allow pedestrians across the BRT corridor, except at signalised intersections.
Unfortunately, residents need to follow the route in order to reach their destination by previously allowed rightturn manoeuvres at the intersection of Louis Botha and Silwood.