Dear Community,

You may have attended the public meeting earlier this year in which the JDA presented to us the plan for a raised pedestrian bridge at Campus Square. The bridge was envisioned as a solution to the problem of repeated accidents involving pedestrians using the intersection.

Many residents expressed concerns about this solution and the costs of implementing it, and so the Auckland Park Residents’ Association (APRA)  facilitated a series of discussions with the JDA to address these concerns. The discussion included consideration of several ideas generated by architectural students at the University of Johannesburg as well as of proposals from other stakeholders and concerned parties.

The general feeling was that a large bridge structure was counter to the intentions set by the CoJ to make the city more friendly to pedestrians, cyclists and pubic transport options, and that such a solution privileged cars over all other means of transport.

In light of the discussions, all the stakeholders agreed to consider a ground-level solution for the intersection (with the option of a bridge at some point in the future only if the ground-level solution proved unworkable), which would incorporate the following innovations/alterations:

• Doing away with the slipways currently in place at the intersection. This would mean all left-turning traffic would have to wait at traffic lights before turning left, and pedestrians would no longer have to cross slipways (which currently have a continuous flow of traffic and are difficult and dangerous to cross). Dropping the slipways would allow for additional pavement space.

•  Keeping pavements as open as possible for visibility.

• Widening the centre islands to allow more space for pedestrians.

• In Kingsway, in the direction of UJ’s main gate, a centre island that would allow pedestrians to walk from the BRT station down to the traffic light.

• The incorporation of cycle lanes along University Way and into Main road.

• Traffic lights to be linked to devices on the BRT buses so that there is no unnecessary waiting when buses are not at the intersection.

The JDA is currently finalising the project concept and preliminary designs; they have supplied the following preliminary timetable:

The concept will be presented to the public in July 2016 – date to be confirmed.

A tender process will begin in August 2016.

Construction is to commence in October 2016.

Project completion is planned for June 2017.

We will continue to keep you informed as soon as there is confirmation of the public meeting in July.

We would like to congratulate & thank the APRA aswell as the community with this positive outcome. It demonstrates that concerted effort by residents can lead to constructive engagement with the City.