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A nightmare bridge haunts pedestrians

A pedestrian bridge that has been vandalised for more than three years, separating Thokoza and the industrial site Alrode(Alberton), which is located over the Old Vereeniging road continues to be a nightmare for workers and job seekers who travel on it, from the neighbouring townships (Thokoza and Katlehong).

A vendor who sells at the entrance point of the bridge in Alrode, Samson Zungu, said he uses an alternative road that compels him to cross the railway lines, which isn’t better nor different from the vandalised bridge.

He expresses, saying, “I reside in Katlehong Twala section and I have been walking from where I live in Katlehong to Alrode for a long time and when the municipality erected the pedestrian bridge I felt relieved and I started using the bridge, but as time went by I discovered that the bridge is being vandalised bit by bit.

“Now it is worse, but I wonder why the law enforcement officers are not acting against the criminal elements that are occurring on the bridge, people are being mugged and it has been vandalised, it seems like no one cares about what happens on it and what happens to it.

“It is fractured right in the middle and people are still using it, I feel it is useless to report it because our government officials don’t want to take responsibility they are reactors, rather than actors.”

Another man named Nthokozo Masango who was interviewed along the pedestrian pathway just next to the dreary bridge( in the evening around 6 O’clock) explained how the destroyed bridge continues to inconvenience him as a job seeker who regularly walks from Thokoza to Alrode in search of employment, “I usually come here in Alrode to search for a job, because this is the closest industrial site I can hunt for a job in, I believe the bridge is unsafe and has to be fixed, now we crossing railway lines because it is vandalised, our safety is not guaranteed, my suggestion to the government is that it should rebuild the bridge with barriers made-out of concrete.”

By Matampane Raymond Mokwena

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