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Long-suffering motorists in the City of Johannesburg will breathe a sigh of relief after the Joburg Roads Agency (JRA) confirmed on Thursday, 23 May 2019, that the M2 will be open to traffic as expected on October 2019.
This was revealed during a walkabout to the M2 Bridge at Selby and Karzene for stakeholders and the media to get first-hand experience of the work being done on the freeway, which has been closed since February 2019.
JRA spokesperson on the M2 campaign Siyabonga Genu said significant progress has been made and the agency was on track to meet its October 2019 deadline as earlier communicated.
“The R50 million budget will cover the costs of rehabilitating on the M2 between Maritzburg and Crown interchange, which need serious attention. Those not being done require their own R60 million budget. Two of those are Eloff and Wemmerpan and the work to be done there consists mainly of waterproofing,” said Genu.
He said that after much assessment, the JRA realised that there is more damage than meets the eye. There is more damage on the joints of the bridge at Selby, but Genu maintained that this would not cause a delay.
“In terms of progress, there are four columns or pillars at Selby, which have collapsed. We need to demolish and reconstruct them. For that to be a success, we need to put in place temporary columns to support the structure, making the site unsafe. That’s why part of the M2 freeway was closed for traffic four months ago,” said Genu.
Thursday’s walkabout continued to the Karzene side of the structure, where a portion of the bridge has been completely destroyed to be rebuilt.
The JRA would continue to communicate the progress on the rehabilitation until completion.
