Work begins on Johannesburg’s Great Walk Bridge

Construction has begun on a US$10.7 million pedestrian and cycling bridge over one of Africa's busiest highways in Johannesburg. ‘The Great Walk Bridge’ will form part of a dedicated five kilometre pedestrian and cycling path from the heart of Alexandra to the centre of the Sandton central business district - providing a quicker, safer route for the estimated 10,000 people who walk or cycle between the two areas daily. Construction, which is being implemented by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) on
March 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Construction has begun on a US$10.7 million pedestrian and cycling bridge over one of Africa's busiest highways in Johannesburg.

‘The Great Walk Bridge’ will form part of a dedicated five kilometre pedestrian and cycling path from the heart of Alexandra to the centre of the Sandton central business district - providing a quicker, safer route for the estimated 10,000 people who walk or cycle between the two areas daily.

Construction, which is being implemented by the Johannesburg Development Agency (7362 JDA) on behalf of the City of Johannesburg, is due to be completed by October 2016.

"This project was initiated after a transport study indicated that as many as 10,000 pedestrians walk to and from Alexandra to employment in Sandton each day," JDA chief executive officer Thanduxolo Mendrew said at the sod-turning ceremony.

The bridge was designed by Royal Haskoning and is being built by Murray AND Roberts, with safety a top priority. It will incorporate three-metre wide pedestrian and cycling pathways separated by barriers from vehicles once it reaches the road. Concrete bollards will be placed on curves to prevent vehicle access.
Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

JDA

Related Content

  • Queensland extends emergency vehcile priority system
    December 18, 2014
    Following encouraging results from an initial small-scale trial of an emergency vehicle priority system in Queensland, Australia, the scheme is now being extended. In an emergency every second counts. Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than by the survivability statistics for the time to cardiopulmonary resuscitation of pre-hospital cardiac arrest: at four minutes the survival rate is 22% but by 14 minutes the survival has dropped to 5% - as can be seen from the graph below. There is a similar tre
    Read More
  • Transportation guru sceptical about V2V technology
    September 12, 2014
    Robert Poole, co-founder of the Reason Foundation, has worked on transportation policy for more than three decades and is an influential voice on tolling, congestion pricing and infrastructure finance. Writing in his monthly newsletter (link http://reason.org/news/show/surface-transportation-news-131) he voices his scepticism of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology which may one day allow cars to communicate with each other and with traffic infrastructure to avoid colli
    Read More
  • Maharashtra confirms hyperloop route in India
    February 26, 2018
    Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) has signed an agreement with the Indian State of Maharashtra to create a route that intends to link central Pune, Navi Mumbai International Airport in 25minutes and connect 26 million people. It aims to eventually support 150 passenger trips annually and save more than 90 million hours of travel time. In addition, an initial pre-feasibility study by VHO indicates that the route could provide socio-economic benefits valued $55m (£39m) over 30 years of operation. It will be deploy
    Read More
  • Cost-effective alternatives to traditional loops
    February 1, 2012
    Traffic signal control is a mainstay of urban congestion management. Despite advances in vehicle detection sensors, inductive loops, which operate by using a magnetic field to detect the metal components in vehicles, are still the most common enabler for intelligent signalised junctions.
    Read More

Highlighted Content