It’s not yet seven in the morning and Mary Fitzgerald Square is already crisscrossed with commuters — schoolchildren, office workers, security guards and shop assistants — hurrying to get to their particular place in the world.
I wait outside Museum Africa to speak to Johannesburg city councillor Rehana Moosajee to talk about the new bus rapid transit system (BRT), the Rea Vaya, and the part it will play in how people like those moving across the square will get around the city.
Though the first phase of the route is up and running from Soweto’s Thokoza Park to Ellis Park, with a couple of circular routes around the inner city, it’s rollout has been mired in controversy.
The launch at the end of August was blighted by shootings, a failed court attempt to shut it down, a strike and then a go-slow by taxis.
An outspoken critic of the BRT and the deputy president of the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), Mthuthuzeli Molefe, was also killed that week, shot six times outside his home; authorities are adamant the killing had nothing to do with the BRT, but the investigation into his death continues.
As the most public figure behind the negotiations, Moosajee has had to grow accustomed to two imposing men in black suits shadowing her wherever she goes. But, she says, since the launch things have quietened down — even if the project has seen more than a few hitches.
The Phase 1A route is only partially up and running and the contract governing the bus operating company on the route, which will be owned and run by affected taxi operators, is still being ironed out. In its place is an interim special purpose vehicle (SPV) that will run the system until the official operating company is set up; the starter service is running on 40 buses rather than the 143 initially intended.
While demand on the trunk route from Soweto to town has been good, demand on the CBD circle route has been insufficient, partly because ticket vendors have been afraid to advertise sales — allegedly due to intimidation from taxi drivers. Feeder services into the main routes are also not running yet.
Transformation costs have escalated, including the impact the BRT will have on the broader value chain of the taxi industry and people working working as queue marshals and vendors. Negotiations with the industry are focused on details like what rate per kilometre the city will pay to the operating company and how it will compensate affected operators for the loss of income experienced because of the BRT.
The total cost — which doesn’t include extras like added security and ongoing negotiations — is estimated to be about R2-billion. But Moosajee would not comment on the cost overruns.
Starting up
While the details around the operating company are being ironed out, While the details around the operating company are being ironed out, the regional chair of the Greater Johannesburg Regional Taxi Association, Eric Motshwane, sees the starter service as a ‘blessingâ€.
‘By the time we take over when negotiations are done, we will have a team that has been ‘understudies’ during these last six months,†he says.
Bus drivers, all formerly taxi drivers, will be accustomed to the routes and station managers and ambassadors will have worked with customers. ‘By time we take over, we hope the dust will have settled.â€
Motshwane is critical of the role national taxi bodies, such as Santaco and the National Taxi Association, have played in attempting to influence negotiations at a municipal level. And he’s not the only one.
The deputy minister for transport, Jeremy Cronin, hit out at Santaco in August, accusing it of misleading and misinforming the taxi industry about government’s plans on BRT, simply seeking a stake for itself in BRT.
‘The BRT documents are clear — affected operators on the routes and phases are the ones that sit for negotiations. It is a business decision that you make as an individual operator. All the [national] structures can do is give support,†says Motshwane.
The Western Cape is now facing similar problems with the rollout of their Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) system. In addition to the Western Cape National Taxi Alliance’s vocal opposition to the operation in Cape Town — that echoes the rally cry of the Johannesburg-based taxi organisations — a massive budgeting error was announced earlier this week.
The city’s original IRT budget was set at R1.4-billion last year but on Wednesday, they announced that those costs were dramatically underestimated and are now saying it will take R4.1-billion to rollout their plan.
Spokesperson Kylie Hatton said when the City’s transport roads and storm water department provided a report on the IRT plan last year ‘they didn’t fully understand the nature of the project†and it was only when the tenders started coming in was the under-budgeting was discovered.
‘We will meet our 2010 commitments and all contracts that are out will be completed and rolled out according to what funding is available,†Hatton said. She said that rollout will include an inner city service, match day shuttle service and airport shuttle service for the World Cup but she was unable to give an exact launch date.
On the bus
The bright red and blue Rea Vaya buses are becoming an increasingly commonplace sight on the streets of Jo’burg.
On a bus that’s running the circle CBD route one recent Friday the driver tells me that working for Rea Vaya is much better than his years driving a taxi. ‘In a taxi you are like a slave,†he says, describing how he worked from four in the morning to well past eight or nine at night. It was like ‘travelling to Durban and back every day,†he says.
Driving for Rea Vaya, he knocks off at five and has a midday break at two. The money is perhaps not as good, but it’s more regular and he does not bear the cost of refuelling or repairing his vehicle. But the familiar unease that surrounds all things taxi permeates our conversation.
He does not want to reveal his name, for fear of recrimination from his former colleagues. Although Rea Vaya appears to be gaining cautious popularity, it still doesn’t travel to enough places to be a single choice of transport for all commuters.
One young woman says she still has to travel to Thokoza Park to catch the Rea Vaya, then she takes a taxi from the centre of town to where she works in Rosebank. The run: R18.50 single or R37 return a day.
She prefers to take the heavily subsidised Putco buses in from Soweto; it costs her about R290 a month, or roughly R13 per day, and stops directly outside her office. But she loves the BRT. ‘It is comfortable, it is affordable if you live in Soweto and work in town and people at the stations are helpful and friendly,†she says.
Where are we going?
The rest of phase one is due to be completed and rolled out by early 2010. Whether BRT will run over the more than 300km across Johannesburg as initially envisaged remains to be seen.
But for more South Africans to take it up will also require a cultural shift in how they view commuting. ‘Can we begin to see public transport as a mode for all and a mode for social integration across class and race?†asks Moosajee.
‘It is going to be interesting to see whether Rea Vaya is going to be sufficiently attractive to entice people out of their private cars, so a chief executive can share space with a general worker. That experiment remains to be seen.â€
How BRT adds up
- Daily passenger demand has increased from 15 000 to 16 000 a day, around 30% since the trunk route service from Soweto to the city centre was implemented.
- The most popular stations in Soweto are Thokoza Park and Diepkloof, averaging 1 582 and 1 242 passengers respectively. Thokoza Park represents 27% morning peak passengers, whereas Diepkloof represents 21%.
- The most popular inner city station is Carlton, with an average of 1 444 passengers, representing 25% of afternoon peak passengers.
- There has been an increase in trip frequency rising from 150 trips to 163 trips a day to meet increasing demand.
- Services run from 5.30 am to 7pm each weekday.
- Due to passenger requests Saturday services now start at 5.15am instead of 6am. Trip numbers have increased to 86 trips every Saturday. — City of Joburg
