By Lucille Davie
CONSTRUCTION of the Gautrain has again been postponed - it will now begin in November or December this year. This is because the announcement of the successful bidder was postponed from the end of April to the end of May.
The bidders - Bombela Consortium and Gauliwe Consortium - delivered their bids to the provincial offices in January. Because of the size (in one case it was 87 boxes) and the "extent and complexity" of the bids, the process has been delayed.
"A project of this size has not been done before in South Africa or in Africa - we are writing the case histories as we go along," said Barbara Jensen, the public relations consultant for the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link.
The 80km Gautrain will link Johannesburg, Pretoria and Johannesburg International Airport. It will cruise at a speed of 160 kilometres an hour and will operate for 18 hours a day. The train will ease the congestion between the province's two principal cities; more than 300 000 cars travel the route each day.
Criteria for the final selection of the bidder will be price of construction (originally set at R7-billion), technical solutions (rolling stock, tunnels, safety and security, and so on), and socio-economic development spin-offs.
Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa stressed that an essential condition of the successful bid was that the Gautrain be completed in time for the Soccer World Cup in 2010.
The Gautrain project started in 2000 when Shilowa announced the proposal, and the train took on the nickname the Shilowa Express. An extensive public consultation process has taken place since then, based on the Environmental Impact Assessment study.
The route starts at Park Station in the Joburg central business district and runs through Rosebank, Sandton and Marlboro, from where a line goes east to the airport. It moves north to Midrand, Centurion and, finally, to the Pretoria Station, from where it will link to other rail services.
The airport link is expected to be complete by 2009, with final completion of the project expected in 2010.
The Gautrain will take about 15 minutes to reach the airport from Sandton/Marlboro and about 40 minutes to travel between Johannesburg and Pretoria. There will be four underground stations and eight surface stations, and some 14 kilometres of underground track - in some places 80 metres down.
The underground stations will be in Rosebank, Sandton (about 11 storeys below ground), at Johannesburg International Airport, and probably in Pretoria.
It was anticipated that 57 000 jobs would be created during construction, with 1 200 permanent jobs created for the operation of the train. About 40 000 jobs would be created within the urban station precincts along the route, Jensen said.
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