Catching a taxi from the Johannesburg CBD to the FNB Stadium outside Soweto can be a nightmare on match days. The queues are long and football fans are regularly charged double the normal rate, especially in the evenings.
A fan from Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, spends on average R20 for a single trip to the stadium.
But the Johannesburg council is about to intervene and make hefty transport rates a thing of the past in time for the Fifa World Cup in 2010.
It aims to cut travel costs by at least 30% with its R2-billion Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, unveiled this week. The project, also known as Rea Vaya (we are going), will develop a bus route linking the north and south of the city, offering an easier option for people to travel around Johannesburg.
”It is clear that public transport will undergo massive changes in the coming few years,” says Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo. ”It is important that all of us should focus our attention on this future. If we fail to do so, new developments will simply overtake us and we will be rendered irrelevant.”
A memorandum of understanding was signed this week between the city council, the Top Six Taxi Association and the greater Johannesburg Regional Taxi Council. It was agreed that taxi owners will form part of bidding consortiums that apply for operating licences.
But not all members of the Top Six Taxi Association are happy about the changes. They complain that they were not consulted about the new system and that it will create competition between the bus and taxi industries.
”What can you do when an agreement has been signed on your behalf already?,” asks a fuming Skhulu Mchunu, of the Witwatersrand Taxi Association. ”We are not happy at all and we feel that we are being targeted by the government. We have been competing with Putco and now metro buses.”
A disappointed Peter Mabe, of the Dobsonville, Roodepoort, Leratong, Johannesburg Taxi Association, said: ”I feel that we were not properly consulted and this has taken most of our members by surprise.”
But Top Six chairperson Sicelo Mabaso, who was a signatory to the memorandum, denied claims that taxi associations had not been consulted and expressed confidence that the industry would benefit.
”When we learned about this we invited all the chairpersons of the associations that would be affected by the BRT to be part of the negotiating process with the Johannesburg council. If their chairpersons didn’t communicate the message to their members it is a problem and they should sort it out among themselves.”
The new system will see about 1 190 buses travelling along dedicated bus lanes that will be demarcated from regular traffic lanes by a coloured surface. Altogether 150 closed bus shelters will be built about 500m apart and fitted with smart-card fare technology. Buses will run at between one- to three-minute intervals during peak hours and will operate between 5am and 12am.
The buses will operate from Lenasia to Sunninghill, Alexandra to Regina Mundi in Soweto, Dobsonville to Troyeville, Nasrec to Ellis Park, Randburg to the CBD and on an inner-city circle route.
There will be 427 trunk, 413 complementary and 350 feeder buses. Trunk buses can carry 90 passengers and complementary buses 60, while the feeder buses can carry 32 passengers.
City of Johannesburg spokesperson Kgamanyane Maphologela said: ”The main trunk routes will be served by the feeder bus system. The trunk routes will travel around the inner city and to close suburbs, while the feeder buses will go further.”
Construction has started on the first phase of the project. Phase 1A, which comprises 48 stations and will cover 40km, should be completed by April 2009 in time for the Fifa Confederations Cup.
Phase 1B should be complete by April 2010 in time for the World Cup and will comprise 102 stations and a distance of 86km. The full phase one, comprising 122km and 150 stations will be completed by 2013.
In August this year Masondo, members from the taxi industry and government officials visited the cities of Bogota and Pereira in Colombia where they learned about that country’s bus rapid transit transport system, TransMilenio (Transmilenia), before implementing the same system in Johannesburg.
Similar transport systems have being implemented already in cities such as Brisbane, Boston, Beijing, Los Angeles and Jakarta.