If all goes according to plan, an explosion of growth is about to turn one of Cape Town’s busiest traffic routes into an economic goldmine.
Anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of what Cape Town could look like in the future need look no further than Klipfontein Road next year.
Klipfontein is a double-lane road that runs from Mowbray to Athlone and then to Khayelitsha, and the route has been chosen for a pioneering form of public transport: bus rapid transit (BRT).
The provincial government and city of Cape Town have selected BRT as the public transport system of the future. But the plan is about far more than transport, for it will change the 20km Klipfontein Road corridor from a mostly desolate stretch into a road of economic transformation through some of the city’s most depressed areas in Athlone, Gatesville, Guguletu, Nyanga and Khayelitsha.
BRT is characterised by dedicated bus lanes. The new bus lanes will be separated from normal traffic lanes to ensure that the speedy buses can whiz along unimpeded by traffic — unlike the dismal failure of the painted lanes they now use along the N2 highway.
New bus stations that will be built along the route will be safe and weatherproof. Officials promise that the new scheduled bus service will arrive on time at the stations day and night. The service will feature the latest high-tech smart-card ticket technology.
The economic advantage to the communities alongside the Klipfontein corridor will start as the new super-quick bus service attracts travellers from the nearby suburbs.
The planners expect the Klipfontein corridor itself to become a destination. They expect the area to boom as the bus service and its feeder networks are established. For alongside the bus stations, passengers will need convenience stores, supermarkets, coffee shops and curbside cafés.
The Klipfontein corridor attracts tens of thousands of travellers, who the planners expect will support services as diverse as crèches, hardware shops and newsagents.
Long stretches of barren land lie alongside the corridor from Mowbray to Khayelitsha. Almost overnight, this will become prime land for development. Buildings along the route are expected to draw investment for refurbishment.
Above all, the new Klipfontein corridor will be people-friendly, not car-friendly as in the past. Parking lots will be turned into paved walkways and mini-malls. Pavements will feature dedicated cycle routes.
This grand vision for the future is being driven by two determined public officials: Western Cape MEC for Transport Tasneem Essop and her counterpart in the city of Cape Town, executive committee member Danile Landingwe.
The two went to Bogota, Colombia, last year where they saw how a public transport system had not only reduced daily travel time for hundreds of thousands of citizens, but had given an economic boost to entire communities and suburbs.
But Cape Town’s poor will not be the only beneficiaries, because the Klipfontein public transport plan is a blueprint for the entire city.
Building, Essop says, will start before March next year.
Planners say it will soon be as easy to catch a fast, safe and cheap ride to the Stormers’ Super 12 game and a Santos league game as it is for Londoners to pop down to Wimbledon on the bus or underground.
Essop calls the programme a “mobility strategy” and says it will determine how Capetonians will travel across their city for decades to come.