October 17, 2005
OCTOBER is Public Transport Month; I kid you not. The only thing that is missing is the public transport.
There are some great plans for improving public transport in the city, but some of them have been just that - great plans - for an awfully long time. As great and well intended as they may be, I can't help thinking that we have not got our priorities right. And Public Transport Month reinforces that belief.
We read interminably about the R7,7-billion taxi recapitalisation programme at national level; at least twice that amount to be spent on the Gautrain at provincial and national levels plus local funding to tie into the system; major investment around Nasrec to improve road and rail access to this key 2010 sports node, as well as to Greater Ellis Park (at national, provincial and local levels); and, at local metro level, the Integrated Transportation Plan for Johannesburg and the Inner City Distribution System.
In addition to this, we are starting to look at Gauteng as a "global city region". Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa announced a few months ago, "The development of an integrated and sustainable transport system is critical to Gauteng's success as a global city region.
"By November 2005 we will have put in place the key pillars of a transport system that will be able to meet the challenges of the Soccer World Cup, ensure the speedy and cost-effective movement of goods and people around the province, promote effective land use and promote broad-based black economic empowerment.
"This will include a review of the current road network and development of a revised road network; the development of an affordable, accessible, reliable and safe public transport system; a review of the current public transport subsidy system; and
the introduction of intelligent transport systems and mechanisms to co-ordinate and align various modes of transport."
Faraday Taxi Rank
So go the plans and promises at national, provincial and metropolitan levels. Yet Faraday Taxi Rank was completed nearly two years ago and taxis are still not using it as operators dispute the payment of a ranking fee.
If we cannot sort that out in two years, how are we going to do all the rest?
Drive up Rissik Street at peak time and wait in frustration as mini-bus taxis jump the traffic lights at the intersection with De Villiers Street, blocking north-bound traffic, to get to their dispatch ranks. In two years I have not seen a metro cop on the scene.
Once a week the presence of a couple of metro police motorcycle cops along the M1 curbs mini-bus taxi drivers from using the emergency lane as their private race track; the rest of the week they have carte blanche.
Hey, we can't even get painted road markings right - weird road markings make all motorists law breakers as they are forced to cut across solid barrier lines to be able reasonably to get where they need to go.
Pollution is another concern - trucks and public sector buses use the roads belching out huge amounts of pollutants, yet have you ever seen one stopped and fined by an official?
I drove to and from KwaZulu-Natal last week and have never seen so many giant trucks on one road at one time, evidently because the railways do not offer an economic and efficient transport service.
Gauteng MEC for transport, Ignatius Jacobs, who in my experience is a committed and hard-working politician, points out that "the major challenge is building confidence in public transport and for that we need everybody's contribution".
Private cars
No Mr MEC; it is not possible to build confidence in a public transport system that does not exist. A poll conducted by the City regarding the form of transport the public intends using during October reflects trains at 7 percent, buses at 10 percent, taxis at 14 percent and cars at 67 percent. Why? Because there is nothing else to use.
Let's face it: the challenge of providing an efficient and effective public transport system in Johannesburg is enormous and should be tackled as a matter of great urgency.
Just consider a metro bus service that has an unenviable reputation for running late at best or, at worst, not bothering to run at all. The MEC discovered this when, to his credit, he decided personally to check out public transport and the bus he planned to catch on one of the legs of his journey simply did not arrive.
Mini-bus taxis, the majority of which are unsafe and which are driven by people who have absolutely no interest in obeying the law, who are excessively aggressive and rude, travel the M1 to and from the city indulging in high-speed lane swopping and the consistent use of the emergency lane. They are a major threat to public safety.
Add a metered taxi service that must rank as the most extortionist in the world, and roads that are polluted constantly by illegal levels of emissions from buses and trucks.
I understand that the Department of Agriculture is to take pollution samples leading up to and on 20 October, Car Free Day, to demonstrate the amazing improvement in the environment when private cars are not around. But the culprits will still be using the roads. We live in cloud cuckoo land where even the cloud is polluted.
The central government Department of Transport "hopes the [public transport] campaign will instill a culture of public transport use in the country, especially among the middle class".
Bicycles
The department is also suggesting that people use bicycles to get around. Apart from the lack of public transport, have you noticed the kilometres of bicycle paths that our road systems offer? No? Neither have I.
National Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe is encouraging those who don't use bicycles to use mini-bus taxis. This is the same minister, incidentally, who not that long ago labeled mini-bus taxis "death traps".
Shouldn't we be looking at a massive reduction in fuel dependency by spending substantial sums on alternative systems and sources? Shouldn't we be looking seriously at pollution? At least Gautrain claims that its use will save 70 000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
From time to time over the past couple of years I have highlighted what pro-active approaches some cities I have visited are taking, like the infrastructure provided to encourage massive bicycle use in Gothenburg; the deliberate rejection of billion-rand budgets to be spent in Bogota on improving the lot of car users (used by the minority of the population) in favour of great facilities for bicycle use by the majority; Mexico City's approach to allowing cars whose number plates end in even and uneven digits on the city streets on different days; the gas/electric buses in Denver.
In Brazil, 25 percent of its oil consumption has been replaced with biofuels. China, one of the world's leading polluters, starts its first windpower complex next year, building the world's largest tidal energy project and a massive solar energy project aimed to dramatically reduce dependency on oil.
In the US, by contrast, legislators are proposing drastic petrol tax suspensions. Neal Pierce of the Washington Post Writers Group, writes, "Heaven forbid that the legislators' constituents should have to face the consequences of buying SUVs and other gas-guzzling heavy vehicles. Or the perils of choosing homes with long commutes. Or the consequences of ignoring years of warnings about the vulnerability to global energy cutoffs."
The US's approach reminds me of a comment by the former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Peñalosa, who said, "The images we get from the United States are a very damaging model to Third World cities. We need to avoid undesirable developments such an urban sprawl.
"People in the US now recognise that there are problems with building cities for cars and not for people, and we in the Third World need to know that. Pedestrians and bicyclists should be given as much importance as motor-vehicles, even more so in developing country cities, where most households don't own cars."
It is not that Peñalosa hates cars. It is that he loves lively public places where people of all backgrounds gather to enjoy themselves and each other, places that barely exist in cities where the car is king. These places are even more important in poor cities than in wealthy ones, he says, because poor people have nowhere else to go.
I want to be first in the queue to proudly use public transport, but let's get our priorities sorted out and let's have a practical approach to implementation.
Trevor Pengelly has come up with an approach to bus transportation locally that may well be the answer. I'll pick it up next week, till then happy cycling or whatever,
Neil
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