A R12-billion monorail will be built between Johannesburg and Soweto in the next two years, it was announced on Wednesday.
“By 2009, no one from Soweto should have to wait more than 15 minutes for transport,” Gauteng finance and economic affairs minister Paul Mashatile said at the launch of the project in Sandton.
Work on the 44,7km monorail and its 39 stations will start in September.
The monorail is intended to complement and not compete against existing forms of transport, said Mashatile. “The problem in South Africa when it comes to public transport is not competition; the problem is people queue for three to four hours [for transport].
He added: “We want to move people: move them efficiently; move them safely; move them in an affordable way.”
It is hoped the monorail will move 1,5-million passengers a day between Soweto and Johannesburg, to ease congestion on the roads.
The monorail service will consist of 4,5m-high, rubber-wheeled, carbon-fibre carriages, 10m long and 3m wide — able to carry 107 passengers each. These will run on concrete beams atop 6m-tall pillars situated mainly on the centre medians between road carriageways, and will dock at aerial stations accessed via escalators.
The hybrid variety used in South Africa will run on a combination of electricity and solar-powered batteries.
Costs
The monorail is expected to cost about R173-million a kilometre to build, but none of this will be borne by the government.
The project is a private-sector initiative by the Malaysian investment consortium Newcyc Vision, with which Mashatile, Gauteng public transport, road and works minister Ignatius Jacobs and Gauteng Economic Development Agency CEO Keith Khoza signed a deal on Wednesday.
Newcyc has been given three months to find black economic empowerment partners. Its CEO, Jeyakumar Varathan, has invited both small local development companies and big civil construction companies to present the consortium with their profiles.
He said that while raw materials are being sourced outside South Africa because of present local shortages, construction will take place in the country at a factory in Mogale City next to the Merafong Hospital.
Built on 20ha of land provided by the Gauteng government, the factory will be the hub of monorail developments throughout Africa.
Taxi industry
Sicelo Mabaso, chairperson of the National Taxi Alliance, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Wednesday afternoon that the new “high quality” modes of transportation being implemented will inevitably encroach on the province’s taxi industry.
“The parallel processes of government, things like the monorail and the BRT [Bus Rapid Transit], all that and all these types of modes are fighting against taxi operations,” Mabaso said.
He compared the current situation of taxi drivers to that of small traders put out of business by the emergence of big shopping malls, saying the plan seems to be to have these modes of transport ready in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup when “commuters will obviously turn to these high-quality modes instead of taxis”.
Mabaso said it is only a perception that commuters have to queue constantly to get taxis.
“It is only during peak hours in the morning and evening … for the rest of the day, taxis wait at the ranks for people to come. We are not making so much money; we only have business for a few hours a day. Now it is going to be worse than it is today,” he said.
Secret process
Jacobs said he first proposed that the idea of a monorail for Gauteng be explored in his 2002 strategic agenda for transport.
However, year-long work on a feasibility study for the project had been kept largely secret until now to prevent any escalation in the prices of land, among other things, said Mashatile.
The monorail is not expected to result in expropriations similar to those caused by the construction of the Gautrain, and only minimal disruption is expected “because we’re going up. This is a sky bridge,” said Jacobs. “We are convinced we are entering a new era of modernising public transport to our province. It’s a revolution.”
Instead of being run by computerised high technology, the South African service will be labour intensive — in the interests of creating jobs and reducing poverty, he said.
The project is expected to create 100 permanent jobs a kilometre. It will create 5Â 000 jobs during construction with another 2Â 400 at the factory.
While round-trip tickets are expected to cost R10 each, rides between stations will cost less, to encourage inner-city travelling in Soweto — between shopping centres, stadiums and major heritage sites.
The entire route will take 45 minutes to cover at an average speed of 40km/h, with a peak speed of 80km/h. Trains will run every 10 to 15 minutes and every three minutes during peak times.