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Date
: 01/10/2006
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Jacobs: Public Transport Month
MEC Ignatius Jacobs announces Public Transport Month
In developing an efficient and affective public transport system
for our province and country, we must take note of the huge
historical imbalances in the delivery of socio-economic
infrastructure to our people. As government, we are aware of
historical disparities that stand in the way of delivering a public
transport system that would help us to ensure social justice in the
way that our communities grow.
The legacy of apartheid planning has led to the immense
underdevelopment and under-utilisation of public transport, with
the 'privileged' communities relying almost entirely on private
transport. On the other hand, public transport remains an option
for historically disadvantaged communities, who constitute a
greater portion of the majority of South Africans. In this respect,
research indicates that:
* 50% of motorised passenger trips are made on public transport and
50% using private transport
* most trips in the peak periods are to school (47%) and work
(32%)
* three quarters of public transport users have an income of R1 600
or less per month
* 68% of households do not own any cars * 13% of households
generate no peak period trips
* 40% of households generate no work trips, reflecting high
unemployment and a lack of income.
Government has made major strides in improving the state of
transport infrastructure, such as the building of roads in
historically disadvantaged communities, the construction of public
transport termini, the introduction of the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link
so as to unlock the economic potential of our province and the Taxi
Recapitalisation Programme, to name but a few.
However, there remains the huge challenge of delivering a public
transport system that would be a mode of choice for the majority of
our people, thus, ensuring a better use of our road space, instead
of the huge reliance on private transport, to the extent that it
chokes economic activities.
This brings to bear the current state of affairs where the rapid
development of our economy, in a democratic dispensation, has been
coupled with growth in the motor manufacturing industry, as well as
congestion and gridlock on our roads.
Therefore, this calls for a partnership between government and the
community of Gauteng, particularly, private vehicle owners, to join
hands in addressing a rapidly growing challenge of ensuring the
mobility for people, goods and services, with minimum delay,
especially as it relates to the delivery of much needed and
essential government services.
In seeking to address these imbalances, government is continuously
developing a series of infrastructure development programmes that
will enable our economy to grow and at the same time, enabling
historically disadvantaged communities to access economic
opportunities in both the first and second economies in
proportional measure of importance.
Car Free Day is an international campaign aimed at saving the
environment from the effects of the emission of harmful gasses to
the atmosphere, and improving the usage and state of public
transport. This would also help us to stem the tide of the rising
cost of fuel in the global economy, especially the developing
world. Road infrastructure continues to be under immense pressure
due to competition for road space from industrial, public and
private road users. The state and lifespan of the road network
continues to degenerate beyond its holding capacity as a result of
the pressure exerted on it.
While government is engaged in socio-economic infrastructure
development programmes, such as roads for local and major use, it
is not possible to build enough roads to counteract the rapid
increase in car ownership in our province. Instead, it is important
to consider all land use needs of the people of Gauteng and at the
same time, introduce an ethos of a smarter usage of road space
through broad partnerships between government, commuters,
pedestrians, motorists, public transport operators, cyclists,
industrial role players, automobile associations and broader
society.
Ours must be the beginning of an ethos of an intelligent use of
road infrastructure coupled with modern and integrated systems and
modes of travel. We must introduce a usage of road space that would
ensure that each of the modes of travel, such as taxi's, buses,
rail, heavy duty vehicles and private cars makes optimal use of
socio-economic infrastructure.
Together with South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL),
we are currently piloting an Intelligent Transport System on the N1
between the City of Joburg and the City of Tshwane. This is meant
to ease the pressure exerted on that important corridor for the
benefit of the economy of our province and our country.
Challenges of urban sprawl bring to bear on the need to change the
way we plan the utilisation of our spatial landscape. We must,
collectively work towards densification in the way we develop
housing, transport and other socio-economic infrastructure. We need
to reverse the legacy of spatial planning that has placed most of
the people of our province far away from their places of work. We
need to develop a transport system that creates a one stop centre
of socio-economic activity. As Gauteng gradually becomes a city
region, it must be countenanced by equally responsive planning and
programmes. What will gauge the level of success in our Public
Transport Month (PTM) campaign will not necessarily be the
overnight emergence of a reliable public transport system, but a
growing and all inclusive partnership for change on matters of
public transport for our province.
This year, there will be a series of activities that will be rolled
out during the month of October, all aimed at broadening the
platform on which we will all interact and exchange ideas about how
to improve our public transport system. These will include the
following:
* Extensive Communication as an essential part of our PTM; in this
regard, all available communication and publicity platforms and
tolls will be utilised so as to cover as much communication ground
as possible. Interviews will also be continuously held with
mainstream and local media so as ensure access to information for
Gauteng residents. A Stakeholder Engagement Programme is also being
rolled out.
* Communication tools will include a website posting of the PTM
programme.
* Intergovernmental co-operation in the planning and implementation
of PTM activities.
* The piloting of the introduction of a high occupancy vehicle lane
on the Joburg to Tshwane corridor so as to ease congestion on that
stretch of the road. This pilot project will be run from 23 to 27
of October 2006, as part of Public Transport Month. The public will
be informed of further details before implementation. The
department is working in partnership with SANRAL, traffic
management authorities, automobile associations and other important
role players on this initiative, between St Andrews Road in
Johannesburg and Rooihuiskraal in Centurion (? 36 kilometres).
Existing lanes will be utilised.
* Launch of Scraping Agency in Sedibeng. The department and the
Sedibeng District Municipality will launch the Taxi
Recapitalisation Scrapping Agency.
* Issuing of the first 10 Public Passenger Transport Operating
Licences in Gauteng. This issuing is only a token of the good
foundation we have laid, working hand in hand in a growing
partnership to modernise the taxi industry. Taxi associations have
made a huge contribution to the high levels of co-operation and
response we have received from taxi-type operators.
* Official opening of a new Randfontein Intermodal Facility. This
will be done in partnership with the West Rand District
Municipality at the Randfontein Taxi Rank.
Launch of the Intergovernmental Transport Charter
The department will launch The Gauteng Intergovernmental Transport
Charter. The charter is a high level agreement between the Member
of Executive Council (MEC) and Members of the Mayoral Committee's
(MMC) of transport, committing themselves and public transport
officials to work together to achieve shared transport objectives
and outputs over the next five years. There will be an exhibition
of public transport facilities (evolution of the infrastructure
from 1996 to 2006), and plans of other transport infrastructure
facilities for the next 5 years.
* Piloting of a new mode of local transport known as the Tuk-Tuks.
This is targeted at areas such as local tourism wherein the
transportation of less than three people between nodal points is
essential and convenient. This mode of transport will be ideal for
moving around the city centres.
This campaign is also informed by the experiences of other
countries, cities and towns. In this regard, we must take a leaf
from the challenges faced by the City of Bogot?, in Colombia, when
they started with the implementation of a campaign similar to ours.
The challenges they faced were in many respects, similar to the
ones we currently face in our rapidly growing province. We are
confident that our efforts will enable us to make great strides in
improving our public transport system. As a measure of success of
our efforts, in the first leg of our PTM campaign, held in October
last year, the initiative enabled the people of our province to
publicly engage on the nature and type of a public transport system
that would serve their needs. The media was also extensively
involved in the creation of public platforms that seek to give
shape to the public debate. Transport practitioners also wrote and
spoke passionately about the many public transport challenges we
continue to face as a developing country. As government we welcome
this development as a positive step in finding transport solutions
for the economy.
For us as a government, seeking to deepen democracy and to broaden
public participation to all the corners of our land, this accounts
for great success in our young democracy. These are some of the
benefits of a democratic dispensation that we will further
strengthen and sustain through all inclusive programmes. This year,
we aim to cover even more ground as we continue to roll out public
participation programmes for the good of the economy and the
welfare of our country and its people.
Our efforts towards finding sustainable transport solutions for our
province are also informed by the International Union of Public
Transport's (UITP) approach for developing countries. In this
regard the following solutions and good practices are
recommended:
* sustainable economic development through an efficient and
effective public transport system
* supporting poverty reduction goals by offering good access to the
city
* creating a local or regional transport authority to support local
policy making
* financing public transport operations and investments
* improving air quality by emphasising more environmentally
friendly modes
* making travel safer by allocating dedicated space and enforcing
standards
* reducing traffic congestion by preserving road capacity and
limiting parking
* making more energy efficient cities by increasing density and
public transport use
* organising and co-operating with para-transit services
* shaping city development using public transport as a
backbone
* improving quality of life with a better use of urban space.
It is evident that our work and the process of implementing our
public transport strategy are in line with international trends and
part of recommendations made by UITP. The idea of Public Transport
Month and Car Free Day is one of such recommended practices where
countries are encouraged to raise awareness and help communities to
use public transport facilities.
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