By Neil Fraser
July 18, 2005
IN THE early stages of the celebrations marking the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Freedom Charter, it appeared two groups of protesters were trying to make their presence felt.
The celebrations were held on 26 June at the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Kliptown.
One was evidently a pro-Zuma faction and the other local residents who were voicing their concern about the slow delivery of desperately needed houses and employment opportunities.
The master of ceremonies had difficulty getting them to be quiet during the initial speeches. That all changed, however, when it came to the turn of Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa.
Before he even uttered one word of his speech, he started singing and immediately united the considerable crowd as he led them through a number of songs from the struggle period.
He proved to be a man of chutzpah and presence clearly able to engage openly with all and, let's face it, a powerful and rich baritone.
Why do I tell this story? Read on.
Trains
The good news is that, after considerable delays, the preferred bidder for the Gautrain has been announced.
The rationale for this mega-project is given as not just alleviating the severe traffic congestion, but that "economic development will be stimulated by the rapid rail system and it will have distinct environmental advantages over other forms of transport".
From a traffic point of view the N1 freeway currently carries some of the highest traffic volumes in South Africa, with more than 157 000 vehicles using it each day, which anyone travelling between Joburg and Tshwane can attest to.
That figure is projected to grow at 7&nbps;percent a year, which by my calculation means 200 000 vehicles by 2010. However, it is pointed out that the current figure for vehicles in the Tshwane-Johannesburg traffic corridor is actually 300 000.
The provincial government estimates that approximately one-fifth of Tshwane-Johannesburg commuters will make the switch from travelling by road to travelling by rail. This will result in Gautrain initially transporting more than 100 000 passengers a day.
2010 World Cup
As I understand the process from this point on, a major negotiation over price has still to be undertaken, and the physical project will then start in 2006 and be complete a few months before the 2010 World Cup kicks off.
Final route proclamation should be made soon and final surveying valuations and expropriation will then follow. The contract involves the construction of 80 kilometres of rail; 10 stations, of which three will be underground; 20 kilometres of tunnel section; nine kilometres of viaducts and bridges; and 10 million cubic metres of earthworks.
So what does it mean for the inner city? First, Park Station will be the "city station" which, hopefully, means that the City will have to clean up the surrounding area, a great deal of which is "gritty", to say the least.
Then there will be formalised radial and localised feeder and distribution routes that should start to deal with a more managed and integrated minibus-taxi and bus system.
The "feeder" is apparently the City's proposed Inner City Distribution System that provides regular vehicles on clockwise and counter-clockwise routes from west (Newtown) to east (Greater Ellis Park) and the top of the Braamfontein Ridge in the north to the freeway in the south.
Distribution routes
The "distribution routes", as best I could determine off the map on the web, are west through Vrededorp to Auckland Park; north through Braampark; then continuing east through Bellevue and Houghton Estate to Orange Grove; and two to the south, one through Selby South, Ophirton, Booysens and Reuven to Southdale; and the other through New Centre and Stafford to La Rochelle.
Incidentally, there is a wealth of information on the Gautrain website, including an ability to check if your own property may be affected. However, the process has not been without its critics, who claim a lack of transparency.
Will Gautrain be good for the inner city and Gauteng? I think there will be lots of arguments and evidence produced that our traffic problems could be improved more cheaply and effectively. I think time and costs will increase because that is the nature of mega-projects such as this.
However, I also think we need an iconic project that has a more than useful impact on traffic, for it will provide a co-ordinating pressure to get our public transport sorted out and our people more used to efficient public transport, as well as provide a world-class introduction to the country and its premier city for international visitors.
Plains
At the centre of the proposed Gauteng Provincial Government Precinct is a planned public space that incorporates the existing Beyers Naude Gardens and surrounding streets as well as an additional area on its south-western end, the whole forming an 'L' shape.
The latter area is to be provided at the expense of a number of historic buildings.
I first covered the Kopanong project in Citichat in February 2004 after the proposed design had been lodged at the Public Library and interested parties had been requested to comment.
In brief, I made the following points:
- The provincial government's commitment to the inner city, demonstrated by its investment and desire to restore the significance of such an important historic urban space, was highly commendable.
- However, there had been a total lack of public consultation which was unacceptable, given an historic area of such national significance and various heritage buildings of local significance.
- The demolition of buildings that impact on and lend scale to an important public space is not in keeping with true transformation and demonstrates that the insensitivity that has seen so much of our built heritage destroyed, is still with us.
- The resultant space that was being proposed completely ignored existing symmetries and axes and resulted in an inappropriate urban space.
Environmental impact
Nine months later, in November 2004, Environmental Impact Consultants invited interested parties to register to take part in an Assessment Process.
Meetings of a subsequent Focus Group were held early in 2005 but they were, by all accounts, poorly minuted and hardly participatory. In fact, the attitude of the authorities' representatives was described by someone who attended as "a stonewall defence or an evasion of the issues raised".
Eventually written answers to various objections were provided, but they too were generally dismissive of the concerns raised.
So where are we now? As far as I know no results of research which one would assume to have been undertaken in preparing the design, have been made available to the South African Heritage Resources Agency nor to the public.
Traffic and pedestrian counts and even the vital Heritage Impact Assessment have not been provided - all of which negatively affects any opportunity to provide further informed comment on the proposals.
Transparency
There is a clear lack of transparency regarding this project, a project that will have an enormous effect on the very core of the inner city.
But why I have raised Kopanong again is that I had a call from someone a few weeks ago querying what was happening at the New Library Hotel, one of the historic buildings slated to make way for the extended public space. Evidently, there was a lot of activity that appeared to indicate that the building was being stripped prior to demolition.
If so, then the whole process is not just flawed, it is a farce. As I quoted some 18 months ago from Mining Camp to Metropolis, "Few aspects of a city provide better evidence of the relationship between the authorities and the private sector or the general cultural climate of a particular period than do squares and parks."
Two provincial projects, both in themselves invaluable, are being viewed with varying degrees of scepticism at processes that are clearly flawed and lack the transparency that we expect in our new democracy.
Are all in the provincial government singing off the same hymn sheet as the premier?
Cheers, Neil
PS: There are still a few places available on the urban regeneration tour on Saturday, 16 July from 2pm to 5pm. For further details contact me on neil@urbaninc.co.za
