CAPE TOWN’S PLANS FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Posted on 03 July 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
Proposals in a new, long-term spatial development plan for Cape Town envisages a new rail link between Khayelitsha and Kuils River, Atlantis and the city centre. Access to public transport within 500 metres of every home is planned.
The council’s committee on planning and environment (Pepco) has endorsed a new draft of the Cape Town Spatial Development Framework, which will guide changes in land-use rights and public investment in infrastructure. It will be used to assess applications from property developers. The draft policy will be open to another round of public scrutiny early in August, once the committee has considered all eight district spatial plans. Pepco chairman Brian Watkyns says the plan provides a useful and effective means of monitoring and managing land development in the city. According to the city’s director for spatial planning Catherine Stone, development has to be encouraged on key transport routes to make the Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) system more viable. The spatial development framework will be implemented through five key strategies, which include a move away from the present radial movement system, in which most roads lead in and out of the central city, in favour of a grid-based movement system to better link the north and south, and east and west. [ Cape Town’s rail network, like its roads, also concentrates on lines into the city centre. Both fall short in connecting dormitory townships to major industrial areas, which lie nowhere near the CBD – editor
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Expansion of the electric suburban rail system around Cape Town is certainly positive news. Lets hope that ESKOM and/or other (private) providers will be able to generate additional low-cost electricity to power the trains. More express suburban trains during rush hours that offer reduced travel durations between the city centre and the outlying suburbs would also be a positive development
As Cape Town looks forward to this project, are there plans to expand the Gauteng Rapid Rail Link with Cape Town? If that happens then Transnet Rail (spoornet) should begin the process of aquiring High-speed trainsets.The obvious choice will be from Bombardier-Zefiro.The main aim will to realise Cecil John Rhodes vision of the abandoned Cape Cairo Railway Project.The corridor will follow the original route linking Cape Town, Harare, Lusaka, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia and eventually Egypt.Samuel has other exciting ideas for Railway Projects for Cape Town and will forward these shortly to relevant authorities.