The taxi hub at Faraday Street. Gauteng grows by over 500 new people a day
Congestion is a global problem and if nothing is done to change mind-sets and moves towards the effective use of public transport, it is going to be a huge problem. A two-pronged attack is required, involving not just mind-set, but also putting the infrastructure in place.
The cost of doing nothing will have a ripple impact that will bring cities to virtual traffic standstills, pollution to unsustainably high levels and create monumental levels of unproductivity.
“We have to change travel patterns, particularly the regularity and extent of travel in peak periods and trip lengths, and shift from motorised, private and road transport to non-motorised, public and rail transport,” says Gautrain chief executive Jack van der Merwe. He says the Gauteng population is increasing by 537 people per day — just factoring in South Africans — which means having to plan around either intervention or enablers.
“We have to look at economic growth and it is worrying with predictions of a population of 18.7-million by 2037, with 8.6-million workers that need to commute and school children going to school, we are looking at 24 million passenger trips per day.”
At the moment, on average from 53% of commuters travelling at 60km an hour, by 2037, only 23% will be travelling at this speed. From 7% travelling between zero and 20km per hour now, this will become 39% by the year 2037.
“We are living in a world that is continuously changing; it is extremely complex with an overload of data and information, and very few traditional methods of addressing problems and issues are still applicable. Then there is competition, with us living in a competitive global village where processes and procedures must be upgraded continuously to ensure growth and survival,” says Van der Merwe.
“By 2025, almost 60% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas and rapid urbanisation and economic development will increase the demand for the movement of people, goods and services.
“The global trend is towards private vehicles as the preferred mode of transport and by then, 6.2-billion private motorised trips will be made daily in cities worldwide meaning gridlock, pollution, increased road traffic accidents and greater dependency on fossil fuels. It is a recipe for transport congestion to bring cities to a standstill.
“Priority public transport corridors, strategic modal transfer nodes and interchanges and freight routes and logistics centres are key to transport planning,” says Van der Merwe, “with rail as the backbone of an integrated public transport system and the protection of future priority corridors, future road networks, passenger and freight rail networks, and airports.”
Aerotropolis
It is possible to plan cities together with their transport systems. For instance, there are many proposed catalytic enabling projects that surround the development of the Ekurhuleni Aerotropolis. These are the product of extensive research, analysis of infrastructure and economic forecasting. However, no matter how well planned the hubs may be as economic strategies, they will not succeed without supportive urban environments.
While not all catalytic projects require supporting urban environments, the ones that aspire to become major urban centres require hubs that are employment-oriented, mixed-use developments, designed specifically to enable and increase the likelihood of success for their constituent catalytic project.
Urban regeneration projects in Ekhurhuleni include the Rhodesfield Master Plan, a creative hub, and the Tembisa, Kempton Park and Germiston precinct urban regeneration projects.