SA CITIES’ TRANSPORT PLANS
Posted on 20 September 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
“Each of SA’s major cities is implementing a transport plan with a battle cry,” the Financial Mail says in its recent feature. ”Durban wants to become ‘SA’s most caring and liveable city’. Johannesburg aims to be SA’s ‘World-class African city’. Cape Town wants more prosaically to ‘create an enabling environment for shared growth and economic development’. There are slight differences in the details.
“Cape Town’s IRT (integrated rapid transport ) will initially serve the poor living far out of town at Atlantis. It is also looking at enhanced rail, especially along the current suburban line south down the peninsula. The first phase launches in May next year with an airport-to-city link. Next September, a 55km ‘trunk route’ running from Atlantis up the West Coast through the Bayside and Bloubergstrand area into the city centre will be launched, with a feeder system following in February. The second phase, covering Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain, which accounts for about two-thirds of public transport use, will begin operating in 2015. The plan is to combine two bus and taxi bodies and register two companies which will run two separate areas of the system.
“eThekwini (Durban) is more actively integrating its taxis and rail development with BRT. With a R1.6bn budget for next year, its BRT’s main difference from Johannesburg’s is to rely more on rail. ‘We already have rail services to residential and industrial areas, and we want to upgrade and extend them,’ says eThekwini city manager Michael Sutcliffe. ‘Besides, around the world, rail is favoured by wealthy residents, so we would hope to get more people out of their cars with a good rail system.’ Annual bus usage is expected to drop from 132,000 passengers a year to 92.000.
“The Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) leg of the BRT is shaky. The R800m, 35-bus project is under construction across nine sites and meant to be in place in time for the World Cup. The network will start operating once the ‘taxi guys are on board”.
Related posts:
